Achilles tending the wounded Patroclus

The first verse of the Iliad

Map of Homeric Greece.

The Iliad is the oldest surviving work of Greek literature. It was an oral epic poem. People spoke it without reading it. It was written down in the 8th century BC. It is an epic (or very long) poem with 24 chapters written in hexameter. The poem includes early Greek myths and legends. It may have been based on a Bronze Age attack on the city Troy. People usually say that Homer wrote the Iliad. However, scholars are not sure if the poem was really written by just one person.