There was a tradition in antiquity that Homer was a blind poet either from Chios (based on the ending of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo) or perhaps from Smyrna. In fact, any number of cities claimed Homer in their lineage, and Lucian (not necessarily seriously) claims he was a Babylonian hostage (the name means "hostage"). The tradition that Homer was blind was further reinforced by the character of Demodocus the blind bard of Phaeacia, with whom the poet was often identified. But all this is beside the point, because despite the various ancient traditions we know about the Homeric Question. If there was a "real," single individual named or called "Homer" he composed the Homeric Poems (and there is considerable debate still as to whether we should consider our current texts the product of a single poet or multiple ones over the course of time--several of the Homeric Hymns and some other minor Homeric works are certainly not the product of the poet who composed the Iliad) as a product at the end of a long oral tradition. In that way, no matter whether there was a single poet responsible for the version of the poems we have now, there were many "Homers" over the centuries.