Homer
(eighth century B.C.)
Little is known about Homer, the poet who wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey. In fact, no one knows for sure exactly who Homer was. The later Greeks believed he was a blind minstrel who came from the island of Chios. Some scholars think there must have been a different poet for each epic; some even think Homer was just a legend. On the whole, it seems most sensible to take the word of the Greeks themselves and to accept the existence of Homer, at least as an ideal model for a class of wandering bards or minstrels later called rhapsodes ("stitchers of songs"). These rhapsodes traveled about from community to community, singing of recent legendary events or of the doings of heroes, gods, and goddesses. They were the historians and entertainers, as well as the myth makers, of their time.
