In the Homeric epigrams the interest turns sometimes on the characteristics of particular localities, for example, Smyrna and Cyme, Erythrae, and Mt Ida; others relate to certain trades or occupations: potters, sailors, fishermen, goat herds, etc. Some may be fragments of longer poems, but evidently they are not the work of any one poet. The fact that they were all ascribed to Homer merely means that they belong to a period in the history of the Ionian and Aeolian colonies when Homer was a name which drew to itself all ancient and popular verse.