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An important and difficult question, which affects the accuracy of modern Homeric texts, is that of the date when the epics became “fixed”—which means given authoritative written form, since oral transmission is always to some extent fluid. An alphabetic writing system reached Greece in the 9th or early 8th century bce. Before that was a gap of 200 or 300 years, following the collapse of Mycenaean culture and the disappearance of Linear B writing (with each sign generally representing a syllable), during which Greece seems to have been nonliterate. During that interval, certainly, much of the epic tradition was formed. ...(100 of 4814 words)