Cyclic Poets is a shorthand term for the
early Greek epic poets, approximate contemporaries of
Homer. We know no more about these poets than we know about Homer, but modern scholars regard them as having composed orally, as did Homer. In the classical period, surviving early epic poems were ascribed to these authors, just as the
Iliad and
Odyssey were ascribed to Homer. Together with Homer, whose
Iliad covers a mere 50 days of the war, they cover the complete war "cycle", thus the name. Most modern scholars place Homer in the 8th century BC. The other poets listed below seemed to have lived in the 7th–5th centuries BC. Excluding Homer's, none of the works of the cyclic poets survive.