The poems themselves are considered “examples of oral poetry frozen in writing. As such, Homer is a source for the social history of the eighth century BC.” With regards to the second and third questions, Morris states that “it has been suggested that these were aristocratic and polemical texts […]. As source material, the poems can be used only with the greatest care. They describe a particular elite viewpoint.” A key remark is the following: “The eighth-century aristoi may or may not have believed that their own society actually functioned along lines similar to Homers; but they wanted it to.”