The Odyssey Background Information

Mycenaean Greece  1600 BC, Greeks get to know people living around the Mediterranean Sea, especially the Phoenicians (foy-NEE-shans), the Cretans, and the Egyptians. BCMediterranean SeaPhoeniciansCretans EgyptiansBCMediterranean SeaPhoeniciansCretans Egyptians  They seem to have started to take jobs as soldiers for the Egyptians, who paid them in gold. soldiersgoldsoldiersgold

 Greeks started to buy things from the Phoenicians (or Canaanites) with their gold. Phoenicians  Greek graves from this time, excavated at Mycenae (my- SEEN-ay), have a lot of gold cups, jewelry, and beautiful swords in them. Mycenae

 Greeks began to copy their ways of doing things. They started to have kings instead of village headmen. kingsvillage headmenkingsvillage headmen  These kings had palaces to live in and collected taxes which they stored in big storerooms. The palaces had big stone walls around them. The stones were so big that later Greeks thought the walls must have been built by giants, whom they called Cyclops. palacestaxesstoneslater Greekspalacestaxesstoneslater Greeks

Late Bronze Age B.C.

Homer  Homer was a legendary early Greek poet traditionally credited with writing the major Greek epics The Iliad and The Odyssey.  For the Greeks of the 7th century BC. however, these books were their history. Their past had been obliterated by the destruction of Mycenaean Civilization.

 Tradition depicts Homer as a blind minstrel wandering from place to place reciting poems that had come down to him from a very old oral tradition.  It is probable that Homer used earlier writings to help him write the Iliad and the Odyssey, or he could have dictated his poems to someone else because of his blindness, or because he was illiterate.

 Scholars maintain their belief in the reality of an actual Homer. So little is known or even guessed of his actual life.  Samuel Butler theorized a young Sicilian woman as author of the Odyssey (but not the Iliad).