IZMIR - BIRTH PLACE OF HOMER

The original city was established in the third millennium B.C. (at present day Bayrakli), and at that time shared, with Troia, the most advanced culture in Western Anatolia. By 1500 B.C. it had fallen under the influence of Central Anatolia's Hittite Empire. in the first millennium B.C. Izmir, then known as Smyrna, ranked as one of the important cities of the lonian Federation; during this period - one of the city's most brilliant - it is believed that Homer is lived here. The Lydian conquest of the city, around 600 B.C., brought this period to an end, and Izmir remained little more than a village throughout the Lydian and the subsequent 6th cen tury B.C. Persian rule. In the fourth century B.C. a new city was built at the instigation of Alexander the Great on the slopes of Mt. Pages (Kadifekale). Izmir's Roman period, from the first century B.C., gave birth to its second great era. Byzantine rule followed in the fourth century and lasted until the Seljuk conquest in the 11th century. In 1415, under Sultan Mehmet Celebi, Izmir became part of the Ottoman Empire.

He is the earliest and greatest of the Ionian poets. We do not know much about his exact birthplace. It is widely believed that he was born either in Chios or in Smyrna in the 8th century B.C. He spent most of his life in Smyrna.

The famous poems of Homer, Iliad and Odyssey, were written in Ionian (language).

He was described as blind according to some early Greek and Ionian documents. But this does not exactly explain, how he wrote about the earth, the sea and the nature so well. http://www.bibleplaces.com/smyrna.htm

The second city of the seven churches of Revelation to receive the message from the Apostle John was that of Smyrna. Established as a Roman commercial center, the city was a port located on the Aegean. Smyrna was established thirty-five miles north of Ephesus on the road that lead to Pergamum. It was built near the ruins of a Greek colony destroyed by the Lydian Kingdom in the C7 BCE. Following the death of Alexander the Great, a General of Alexander’s army named Lysimachus took over the region, and established the new Hellenistic city (C3 BCE).

http://www.ctsp.co.il/LBS%20pages/LBS_smyrna.htm