The Iliad

About the ancient poet Homer, nothing certain is known. Scholars debate whether he wrote one, both, or neither of the major works attributed to him, The Iliad and The Odyssey; whether, as tradition holds, he was blind; whether, in fact, he existed at all. The ancient Greeks certainly believed in a blind, wandering poet who composed their national epics-the ancient historian Herodotus thought Homer lived around 850 B.C. -and virtually all Greek literature descends from his writings. Modern scholarship dates the poems to 750-725 B.C., though the events the poems describe, the Trojan War and its aftermath, probably occurred around 1200 B.C. Homer was born most likely in either Smyrna (present-day Izmir, Turkey) or Chios (on the island of the same name), and is buried, according to tradition, on the island of Ios.Fagles, Robert is the author of 'The Iliad' with ISBN 9781587260940 and ISBN 1587260948.