Homer is generally believed to have composed the two great Ancient Greek epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, in the eighth century BC.No information about Homer has survived and today there are many theories about the authorship of the two poems.

The Iliad begins its story in the tenth and final year of the Trojan War, which has ground to a stalemate between the two opposing armies--the invading Achaeans and the besieged Trojans. Mustered from all over the Greek mainland and islands under the command of Menelaos' wealthy and powerful brother, Agamomnon, King of Mycenae, the Achaeans have grown weary of the war. Their ships, beached at the eade of the Trojan plain, are decaying with disuse. Their greatest warrior, Achilles, has just publicly denounced, in the most bluntly brutal terms, both the war and his commander, and it appears that much of the Achaeans host shares Achilles' view that the war is no longer worth fighting.