Not a great deal is known about the blind poet Homer, the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey. The ancient Greeks believed him to have lived during the 8th century BC in Smyrna, in Asia Minor. The myth around the writer included the story that his real name was Melesigines, and that he was the offspring of the river Meles and a nymph called Kretheis.

Most scholars do not see the Iliad as an historic record of events. We do know that around 1250-1200 BC the city of Troy was sacked by soldiers from the Greek mainland, but the poem is more interesting as a cultural record than as a narrative of history.