Ancient accounts of Homer

The periodization hinted in written records comes from Herodotus, who maintained that Hesiod and Homer lived no more than 400 years before his own time, therefore around 850 BC.

Eight of these are edited in Georg Westermann's Vitarum Scriptores Graeci minores,[3] including a narrative entitled the Contest of Homer and Hesiod.

In the Homeric epigrams, the subject matter often covers the characteristics of particular localities, for example, Smyrna and Cyme,[6] Erythrae,[7] and Mount Ida;[8] others relate to certain trades or occupations: potters,[9] sailors, fishermen, goat herds, etc., suggesting that they are not the work of any one poet.

Here may be the source of the chief incident of the Herodotean Life, the birth of Homer, named Son of the Meles to conceal a scandalous affair between his mother and an older man who had been appointed her guardian.

Thus: These indications render it probable that the stories connecting Homer with different cities and islands grew up after his poems had become known and famous, especially in the new and flourishing colonies of Aeolis and Ionia.

The contention for Homer may have begun at a time when his real history was lost, and he had become a sort of mythical figure, an anonymous hero, or a personification of a great school of poetry.