<P> It is generally accepted that the poems were composed at some point around the late 8th or early 7th century BC . The poems are in Homeric Greek, also known as Epic Greek, a literary language which shows a mixture of features of the Ionic and Aeolic dialects from different centuries; the predominant influence is Eastern Ionic . Most researchers believe that the poems were originally transmitted orally . </P> <P> From antiquity until the present day, the influence of the Homeric epics on Western civilization has been great, inspiring many of its most famous works of literature, music, art and film . The Homeric epics were the greatest influence on ancient Greek culture and education; to Plato, Homer was simply the one who "has taught Greece"--ten Hellada pepaideuken . </P> <P> Today only the Iliad and Odyssey are associated with the name' Homer' . In antiquity, a very large number of other works were sometimes attributed to him, including the Homeric Hymns, the Contest of Homer and Hesiod, the Little Iliad, the Nostoi, the Thebaid, the Cypria, the Epigoni, the comic mini-epic Batrachomyomachia ("The Frog - Mouse War"), the Margites, the Capture of Oechalia, and the Phocais . These claims are not considered authentic today and were by no means universally accepted in the ancient world . As with the multitude of legends surrounding Homer's life, they indicate little more than the centrality of Homer to ancient Greek culture . </P> <P> Many traditions circulated in the ancient world concerning Homer, most of which are lost . Modern scholarly consensus is that they have no value as history . Some claims were established early and repeated often - that Homer was blind (taking as self - referential a passage describing the blind bard Demodocus), that he was born in Chios, that he was the son of the river Meles and the nymph Critheïs, that he was a wandering bard, that he composed a varying list of other works (the Homerica), that he died either in Ios or after failing to solve a riddle set by fishermen, and various explanations for the name' Homer' . The two best known ancient biographies of Homer are the Life of Homer by the Pseudo-Herodotus and the Contest of Homer and Hesiod . </P>

Who is considered the single most important source for classical mythology after homer