"This remarkable book throws new light on the history and travels of Greeks in the eighth century B.C., the formative age of the great epics of Homer. Drawing on a lifetime's familiarity with Greek literature and history, many recent archaeological discoveries and the author's own travels to its main sites around the Mediterranean, it shows how similar travels shaped the Greeks' myths about their gods and heroes, and relates them to particular places and stories in the east and west. It credits particular Greeks for the first time with a trail of discoveries about their gods and battles which seemed to stretch from one end of their world to the other."--BOOK JACKET.