Description of the attraction
One of the greatest poets of Ancient Greece is the master of the heroic epic - Homer, who is credited with the authorship of almost half of the ancient Greek works found to date. He is also the creator of the immortal "Iliad" and "Odyssey" - the most ancient monuments of European literature.
Unfortunately, very little is known about the life of the legendary poet-storyteller. Historians have not been able to establish reliably even the approximate date of birth of the poet (the supposed period is quite wide - the end of the 12th century BC - 8th century BC), although modern science still insists that Homer lived at 8 century BC Nothing is known about the place of his birth - in ancient times, the right to be called the "homeland of Homer" was contested by Athens, Argos, Rhodes, Smyrna, Chios, Colophon and Salamis. Homer's biography is a collection of fragmentary and often incoherent information and contains a number of contradictions. The only thing that most researchers agree on is that the place of Homer's death is the Greek island of Ios, and the ancient Greek historian Herodotus and the geographer Pausanias mentioned this in their writings.
Homer's tomb is believed to be at the top of a picturesque hill near Plakoto Beach on the northern tip of Ios. It was identified as early as the 17th century by a number of circumstantial evidence, including a marble slab found here with a commemorative inscription engraved on it. Although it is possible that Homer was buried in a completely different place, today this place is called the "Tomb of Homer" and it is one of the most popular tourist attractions on the island of Ios.
