Homers Odyssey some contexts an epic of the eighth/seventh centuries BCE and a cascade of relationships between past and present relationship 8th/7th century BCE and a golden age of heroes Trojan war and bronze age cultural memory and record relationship archaeology and this epic of a lost past Schliemann discovering a legendary past fact and fiction, archaeology and legend the setting the Mediterranean in the bronze age and after 13th century BCE and after what was happening in Homers time? and remember this epic is a mixture of past and present from household to state great empires in the east Egyptians,Hittites, Assyrians, Persians the city and civil society emerging from the eighth century BCE in the Mediterranean the old aristocracy and a new citizenry this is how the aristocracy saw themselves the citizen body hoplites fighting together land and economy a society whose wealth centered upon agriculture mobility aristocrats traveling mercenaries fighting abroad