Homer is the oldest known Greek poet and chronologically the first European poet. We have seven accounts of his life and there were seven cities that claimed him as a son, the most likely being Smyrna and Chios. He probably lived in the 8th c. BC and was by profession a rhapsodist, a performer of epic poems. He is traditionally held to be the author of two great epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is credited with other works, among them the Batrachomyomachia (The War between the Frogs and the Mice) and the Homeric Hymns. In its 24 books the Iliad tells the story of the last 51 days of the Trojan War, while the Odyssey, also in 24 books, recounts the wanderings of Odysseus on his adventure-filled ten-year journey home to Ithaca. The Homeric Question is a blanket term covering all the problems relating to the identity of Homer and the composition and written transcription of the two epics (e.g. whether Homer was a real person, whether they have an historical basis, whether they are the works of the same poet, whether they are uniform compositions or layered in concept). From their very first telling both the Iliad and the Odyssey have been popular stories and since Antiquity have consistently been used for educational purposes. Still read, taught and studied, they are the cornerstone of European literature and Western thought in general.