850 BC Homer
<p><b>Homer</b> (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek" title="Ancient Greek">Ancient Greek</a>: Ὅμηρος <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_Greek" title="Help:IPA for Greek">[hómɛːros]</a>, <i>Hómēros</i>) is best known as the author of the <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iliad" title="Iliad">Iliad</a></i> and the <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssey" title="Odyssey">Odyssey</a></i>. He was believed by the ancient <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greeks" title="Greeks">Greeks</a> to have been the first and greatest of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_poetry" title="Epic poetry">epic poets</a>. </p>
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Author of the first known <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literature" title="Literature">literature</a> of Europe, he is central to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_canon" title="Western canon">Western canon</a>.
When he lived, as well as whether he lived at all, is unknown. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herodotus" title="Herodotus">Herodotus</a> estimates that Homer lived no more than 400 years before his own time,<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer#cite_note-1">[1]</a></sup> which would place him at around 850 BCE or later. </p>
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_of_Homer_%28Pseudo-Herodotus%29" title="Life of Homer (Pseudo-Herodotus)">Pseudo-Herodotus</a> estimates that he was born 622 years before <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerxes_I" title="Xerxes I">Xerxes I</a> placed <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerxes%27_Pontoon_Bridges" title="Xerxes' Pontoon Bridges">a pontoon bridge</a> over the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellespont" class="mw-redirect" title="Hellespont">Hellespont</a> in 480 BCE, which would place him at 1102 BCE, 168 years after the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_War" title="Trojan War">fall of Troy</a> in 1270 BCE. These two end points are 252 years apart, representative of the differences in dates given by the other sources.<sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer#cite_note-2">[2]</a></sup></p>
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The importance of Homer to the ancient Greeks is described in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato" title="Plato">Plato</a>'s <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Republic_%28Plato%29" class="mw-redirect" title="The Republic (Plato)">Republic</a></i>, where he is referred to as the <i>protos didaskalos</i>, "first teacher", of tragedy, the <i>hegemon paideias</i>, "leader of learning", and the one who <i>ten Hellada pepaideuken</i>, "has taught Greece".<sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer#cite_note-3">[3]</a></sup> Homer's works, which are about fifty percent speeches,<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer#cite_note-4">[4]</a></sup> provided models in persuasive speaking and writing that were emulated throughout the ancient and medieval Greek worlds.<sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer#cite_note-5">[5]</a></sup> Fragments of Homer account for nearly half of all identifiable Greek literary <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus" title="Papyrus">papyrus</a> finds in Egypt.<sup id="cite_ref-6" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer#cite_note-6">[6]</a></sup></p>