Homerus
A celebrated Greek poet, the most ancient of all the profane writers. The age in which he lived is not known, though some suppose it to be about 168 years after the Trojan war. Uncertainty prevails, also, as to the place of his nativity, seven cities claiming to be thus honored. These are Smyrna, Rhodos, Colophon, Salamis, Chios, Argos, and Athenae. In his two famous poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, he has displayed the most consummate knowledge of human nature, and rendered himself immortal by the sublimity and elegance of his poetry. In the Iliad he gives a narrative of the siege of Troy, and the Odyssey deals with the wanderings of Ulysses after the fall of the city. Byron, in The Bride of Abydos, calls him "The blind old man of Scio's rocky isle," thus assuming Chios to be his birthplace, Scio being the modern name of the place. Dryden, in his well-known lines commencing "Three poets in three distant ages born," ranks him with Vergil and Milton, giving Homer the palm of "loftiness of thought."
One of the old poets thus alludes to his verse: "Read Homer once, and you can read no more, For all books else appear so mean and poor; Verse will seem prose; but still persist to read, And Homer will be all the books you need."
Honor or Honos. The personification of honor at Rome, to whom temples were built both by Marcellus and by Marius, close to the temples of Honos. Marcellus also built one to Virtus: and the two deities are frequently mentioned together.