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Composition

The date of the poem is a matter of some disagreement among classicists. In the middle of the 8th century BC, the inhabitants of Greece began to adopt a modified version of the Phoenician alphabet to write down their own language. The Homeric poems may have been one of the earliest products of that literacy, and if so, would have been composed some time in the late 8th century BC. Inscribed on a clay cup found in Ischia, Italy, are the words "Nestor's cup, good to drink from." Some scholars, such as Calvert Watkins, have tied this cup to a description of King Nestor's golden cup in the Iliad. If the cup is an allusion to the Iliad, that poem's composition can be dated to at least 700–750 BC.

Dating is similarly complicated by the fact that the Homeric poems, or sections of them, were performed regularly by rhapsodes for several hundred years. The Odyssey as it exists today is likely not significantly different. Aside from minor differences, the Homeric poems gained a canonical place in the institutions of ancient Athens by the 6th century. In 566 BC, Peisistratos instituted a civic and religious festival called the Panathenaia, which featured performances of Homeric poems. These are significant because a "correct" version of the poems had to be performed, indicating that a particular version of the text had become canonised.