Homer …

• No one knows when he lived. Probably around 700 or 800 B.C.
• We're pretty sure he wrote two of the greatest pieces of literature ever written: The Iliad and The Odyssey.
• Homer was a main part of the education of Plato and Aristotle because of the ideals, style, and content of his epic poems.
• He may have been born in Greece or maybe Turkey, near the Aegean Sea.
• He was probably blind.
• The poems were originally passed from one group to another orally. The poems tell of the period right before recorded history.
• The famous Homeric epithets like fleet-footed Achilles, or earth-shaking Poseidon are ancient relatives to Richard the Lion-Hearted or America the Beautiful. They are repeated like a famous person's music or logo.
• Homer - or whoever wrote The Iliad and The Odyssey - started a literary style that has greatly influenced writers to this day.
• The ideals expressed were of the highest motives. Characters constantly spoke with super natural beings in order to decide how to proceed with their lives.