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Homer
(fl. 9th or 8th c. BC)

Other names; Maeonides (son of Maeon), Melesgines

Homer remains a largely mysterious figure, with little definite information about his life, yet the epic poems Iliad and Odyssey are traditionally credited to him, and if this attribution is accepted, he must be regarded as one of the greatest literary artists in history. These two monumental works became cornerstones of Greek education and culture, while exerting a profound influence on Western literary traditions through Rome, the Renaissance, and later translations. For the Greeks themselves, they were not simply literature but a collective symbol of heroism and a major source of moral and practical instruction. By the 7th and 6th centuries BC, quotations, references, and artistic depictions drawn from the epics were already widespread, prompting early Homeric scholarship, legends, and debates about his era. The poems’ predominantly Ionic dialect supports the general belief that Homer came from Ionia, though several cities claimed to be his birthplace because no reliable local memory survived. This lack of verifiable detail encouraged the invention of increasingly elaborate pseudobiographies from the 5th century BC through the Alexandrian and Roman periods, though these provide little or no reliable historical information. Crates and Eratosthenes state that he lived within the first century after the Trojan War; Aristotle and Aristarchus place him during the Ionian migration, 140 years after the war; the chronologist Apollodorus gives the year 240, Porphyrius 275, the Parian Marble 277, and Herodotus 400 after that event; while Theopompus even makes him a contemporary of Gyges, king of Lydia. Modern scholars generally agree with ancient testimony that Homer’s activity was centred in the East Aegean, a view reinforced by specific geographic references in the Iliad and traditions concerning his descendants on Chios. Although differences in vocabulary and genre raise questions about whether a single author composed both epics, the Odyssey may have been conceived as a deliberate continuation written after the Iliad. Linguistic developments, descriptions of datable objects such as hoplite armour, and the rise of hero cults in the late eighth century all suggest that these monumental epics were composed during the ninth or eighth century BC Various traditions give Homer different parentage, and some state that he was born on the banks of the River Meles.

Place of birth: Ionia? (Turkey)

Traditionally, Homer is the son of the River Meles and Critheis, or of Phemius and Critheis, or of Maeon (2) and Critheis, or the grandson of Maeon (2) (some state that he was his adoptive father, others his guardian).