Homer and the "Stone of the Teacher"

Homer was a classical Greek singer and walking poet (aoidos). He is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.

It is unknown when he really lived. Herodotus - an ancient Greek historian - estimates that Homer lived 400 years before Herodotus' own time, so around 850 BC. But the other ancient sources claim that he lived closer to the supposed time of the Trojan War, in the early 12th century BC. Modern researches appear to place Homer in the 7th or 8th centuries BC.

Homer is more frequently said to be born in the Ionian region of Asia Minor, at Smyrna, or on the island of Chios, dying on the Cycladic island of Ios. On the island of Chios is the Homer Stone, also called Daskalopetra (see the picture above). Is a historical place in the area of Vrontados. According to tradition, this is actually the stone where Homer was sitting on, teaching, thinking, and narrating his poems. As it is known, Homer did never write his poems himself as he was probably blind, but he was narrating them to his students who were writing them in his place.

The name of this place - daskalopetra - actually means the stone of teacher in Greek, referring to the great poet.

The legend says that his original name was Melesigenes - son of Meles, a river god, which flowed by the city Smyrna, and the nymph Kretheis. It means that Homer had high position in ancient Greek world, because the divine or half divine origin was always attributed to prominent people.

Homeric Questions - the dispute concerning if Homer is a real author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and also when he lived. In the result we have 3 thesis about that:
The first group are separatists, who claim that Homer is the author of Iliad only.
Pluralists, who say that the authors of both poems are aoidos - walking singers, whose songs have been collected by a group of people.
The third group - unitarists, claim that Iliad and Odyssey were both written by Homer.

Iliad
Set in the times of the Trojan War (the ten-year siege of the city of Troy (Ilium) by a coalition of Greek states), the Iliad tells about the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles. For more information, click here.

Odyssey
Is the history of the Greek hero Odysseus and his journey home after the fall of Troy. It takes Odysseus ten years to reach Ithaca after the ten-year Trojan War. In his absence, it is assumed he has died, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus must deal with a group of unruly suitors.