Roman copy of a Hellenistic portrait.

Homer is usually regarded as the first poet to write down the epics the Iliad and the Odyssey, two groups of stories that must have belonged to an older oral tradition. Whether or not Homer was a real historical figure or a symbolic construction, the Iliad is the first written work in history to use literary devices such as simile and metaphor.

The ancient Greeks certainly believed he was a single historical poet who lived in the eighth century BCE. Tradition has it that Homer was blind, as is suggested in this idealised portrait, of which there are a number of Roman copies