Homer

Homer is the name the ancient Greeks gave to the poet of the Iliad and the Odyssey, the two epics that stand at the beginning of Western literature. Nothing certain is known about him; tradition made him blind and placed him in Ionia, on the coast of Asia Minor, and the poems are generally dated to the eighth century BC. Scholars have long debated whether a single author composed both works, or whether they grew out of generations of oral performance before being written down. Whatever the answer, the Iliad's account of the Trojan War and the Odyssey's story of a long journey home shaped everything that came after.