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Wellsprings
Homer

Homer

c. 800 BCE–c. 700 BCE · Smyrna

The traditional author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, the foundational epics of Greek literature. Whether a single historical poet or a tradition of oral bards, 'Homer' stands at the head of the Western literary canon.

See Homer’s journey on the map →

Did you know?

  • Homer lived closer in time to the Great Pyramid than to us

    When the Homeric epics took shape, around the 8th century BCE, the Great Pyramid of Giza was already some 1,800 years old. Homer stands closer in time to the building of that pyramid than to the present day.

    How we know

    Homer c. 750 BCE (floruit c. 800–700 BCE); Great Pyramid c. 2560 BCE. Pyramid→Homer ≈ 2,560 − 750 = 1,810 yrs; Homer→2026 CE ≈ 2,775 yrs — so closer to the pyramid (holds across his whole floruit).

Life journeyclick any stop, or use ←/→

Stop 1 of 3800 BCEBorn

SmyrnaIonia (Asia Minor)

What they did here

Legendary attribution: Homer's life is not historically documented; this stop is ancient tradition only. Traditional account of Homer's birthplace (one of seven cities claiming him); a Greek city on the Aeolian/Ionian Anatolian coast.

About Smyrna

Smyrna, modern İzmir on the Aegean coast of Turkey, was a leading Ionian Greek polis and a major center of rhetoric and learning under Rome. The sophist Marcus Antonius Polemon taught there, the orator Aelius Aristides was closely associated with the city, and it was one of several places claiming to be the birthplace of Homer. The mathematician Theon of Smyrna and the epic poet Quintus Smyrnaeus take their names from it.

See other sages who lived in Smyrna→

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Homer’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Works(2)