TheCyclic Poets is a shorthand term for theearly Greek epic poets, who were approximate contemporaries ofHomer. No more is known about those poets than about Homer, but modern scholars regard them as having composed orally, as did Homer. In theclassical period, surviving early epic poems were ascribed to those authors, just as theIliad andOdyssey were ascribed to Homer. Together with Homer, whoseIliad 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 to the 5th centuries BC. Excluding Homer's, none of the works of the cyclic poets has survived.