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It's a common belief that Homer's Iliad and Odyssey were originally just books, but they actually started as something else entirely: spoken poetry. These epic tales weren't written down at first; they were oral traditions. Before writing was widespread in ancient Greece, traveling poets called rhapsodes or bards would perform these long poems from memory. They used special techniques, like repeating phrases and epic similes, to help them remember thousands of lines. Think of them as storytellers who entertained audiences with these legendary stories of gods, heroes, and ancient wars. It wasn't until much later—hundreds of years after they were first told—that they were finally written down. This happened around the 6th or 7th century BC. So, the versions we read today are the result of many generations of these oral performances being collected and finally committed to paper. This oral tradition is why the language in these works is so formulaic and repetitive—it's a reflection of their origins as a performance art. The poems were built to be remembered and recited, not just read silently.