The Homeric epics take written form

The Iliad and the Odyssey, long recited orally, were fixed in writing and became the shared educational core of the Greek world.

Why it matters

A shared text created a shared imagination across hundreds of independent poleis. The epics are also the West's oldest sustained exploration of honor, grief, homecoming and mortality — questions the Ideas section still asks.

People

Homer

Related events

• c. 1050 BCE – 700 BCE

  The alphabet spreads across the Mediterranean

  Phoenician traders simplified writing into a small set of consonant signs; Greeks later added vowels, producing the ancestor of most scripts used today.

  Communication · middle east

• 776 BCE

  The Olympic games begin at Olympia

  Panhellenic athletic contests held every four years brought rival Greek city-states into a shared calendar and truce.

  Art · europe

• 470 BCE – 399 BCE

  Socrates questions Athens

  Socrates wrote nothing; he walked and talked, pressing Athenians to define justice, courage and the good — and died for refusing to stop.

  Philosophy · europe

Sources

• Encyclopædia Britannica — Homer