HERODOTUS (c.490-425/420 BC)
Herodotus, according to Cicero the "father of history", was born in Dorian
Halicarnassus
(now Bodrum), but had to leave after taking part in an uprising against
the tyrant Lygdamis. He travelled widely in Egypt, Africa, Asia
Minor and eastern Europe, then lived for a time in Athens, greatly
respected and honoured, before moving in 444 BC to settle in the newly
founded Athenian colony of Thourioi (Thurii) in southern Italy. His history
of the wars between Greece and Persia, divided in later years into nine
books named after the Muses, incorporated observations made on his travels
as well as a record of the political events. Later study has confirmed
in many respects the accuracy of his work, which is a valuable source of
information on the Greek settlements in Asia Minor
as well as on the lands and peoples of Africa and the Near East.
HOMER (c.8th c BC)
The city of Smyrna (Izmir) in Asia
Minor claims, probably with some justification, to be the birthplace
of Homer, legendary author of the "Iliad"
and the "Odyssey" and the West's earliest epic poet. Tradition has it that
he was a blind "rhapsode", a wandering reciter of poetry who travelled
around the Ionian cities. The Ionian
"sons of Homer" existed as a guild from about 700 BC, based more particularly
on the island of Chios (Sakiz). However, it has always been a matter of
debate whether Homer actually was a historical figure, especially since
it was doubted whether one single person was capable of being solely responsible
for two such great works. A late 18th c. German scholar advanced the theory
that the Iliad and the Odyssey were collections
of individual lays, thus making Homer a kind of collective term for more
ancient epic verse.
Nowadays it is generally held that Homer was a real person who lived
and wrote on the west coast of Asia Minor and
was associated in many ways with the island of Chios. His great works probably
also incorporated many older and shorter legendary epics, with the Iliad
thought to have been written before the Odyssey although both works were
much amended and expanded at a later date. Homer is also credited with
the "Homeric Hymns and Epigrams" and the comic epics of the Fool Margites
and the War of Frogs and Mice ("Batrachomyomachia").
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