Phantasia (poet)

Phantasia is the name of an ancient Egyptian woman who was said to have been the author of the immediate sources of the two ancient Greek epics, Iliad and Odyssey, attributed to Homer. According to a fiction retold by the Byzantine scholar Eustathius of Thessalonica and attributed by him to "a certain Naucrates", Phantasia, daughter of Nicarchus of Memphis, an inspired poet, wrote poems about the war in the plains of Troy and the wanderings of Odysseus, and deposited these books in the temple of Hephaestus at Memphis. Homer afterwards visited the shrine, persuaded the priests to make copies of the books for him, and afterwards wrote the Iliad and Odyssey. "Some say" [Eustathius adds] "that Homer himself was Egyptian; others, that he visited the country and was taught by Egyptians."

Phantasia (poet)

Phantasia is the name of an ancient Egyptian woman who was said to have been the author of the immediate sources of the two ancient Greek epics, Iliad and Odyssey, attributed to Homer. According to a fiction retold by the Byzantine scholar Eustathius of Thessalonica and attributed by him to "a certain Naucrates", Phantasia, daughter of Nicarchus of Memphis, an inspired poet, wrote poems about the war in the plains of Troy and the wanderings of Odysseus, and deposited these books in the temple of Hephaestus at Memphis. Homer afterwards visited the shrine, persuaded the priests to make copies of the books for him, and afterwards wrote the Iliad and Odyssey. "Some say" [Eustathius adds] "that Homer himself was Egyptian; others, that he visited the country and was taught by Egyptians."