Homer was a Greek poet, to whom are attributed the great epics, the Iliad, the story of the siege of Troy, and the Odyssey, the tale of Ulysses's wanderings. The place of his birth is doubtful; probably a Greek colony on the coast of Asia Minor, and his date, once put as far back as 1200 BC, from the style of the poems attributed to him is now thought to be much later. Arguments have long raged over whether his works are in fact by the same hand, or have their origins in the lays of Homer and his followers (Homeridae), and there seems little doubt that the works were originally based on current ballads which were much modified and extended. Of the true Homer, nothing is positively known. The so-called Homeric hymns are certainly of a later age.
