HOMER (eighth century BCE), according to unanimous ancient Greek tradition, was the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey. His authorship of other epic poems and of long hexametrical hymns was already disputed in antiquity. Tradition assigns to him several dates, all earlier than the foundation of the Olympic Games in 776 BCE. All ancient information, however, is much later than any of these dates and has rightly been seen as unhistorical in modern scholarship. The Iliad and Odyssey are now seen as the result and culmination of a long tradition of oral poetry; in their substance, they were composed between the late eighth century BCE and the early seventh century BCE, with a growing consensus for a later rather than an earlier date. As part of a tradition reaching back to the Late Bronze Age, the poems are an important source of information on early Greek religion and...