Simple. Homer was important because Aristotle said he was important.

Aristotle used Homer's stories in his Poetics to represent the best of literature, saying that Homer epitomized what literature was all about. Aristotle used a certain formula to identify good literature. We call this today the Freytag Pyramid. I am sure everyone here has seen this pyramid at one time or another in their schooling, but the basic principle is this. There is an introduction, where the poet tells the audience who all the characters are in the story. We get this in The Illiad when he tells us about the kings and how they decided to go to war. Remember that there was conflict during this decision. Achilles didn't want to go, and Odysseus wouldn't go unless his buddy Achilles went. But everything turned out.

Then, you have the rising action. The start of the Trojan war would represent this action. The ships had set sail and the temple of Apollo was defiled, leading up to a certain climax, that everyone is sure to take part. The war is where the pyramid kind of levels out, but still rises to the climax. You have the argument between Achilles and Agamemnon, where Achilles pouts and says, "I hate you Agamemnon." And Agamemnon responds with, "I know you do, but you will fight for me."

We must not forget that Achilles' name means "Aches" in ancient Greek, and he was a baby and had sand in his vagina for most of the story. Odysseus pretty much stuck to what his buddy did, but Odysseus' name meant "Hurts" and would feel whatever Achilles felt, but still fought with Agamemnon.

The rising point of the story is when Patrocles was killed by Hector in Achilles' armor, and then Achilles goes after Hector with a vengance, and drags Hector behind his chariot for three days straight, which seems kind of overkill to me, but whatever he wanted to do. One day would have been good enough. That is the top of the Freytag pyramid. The climax of the story.

After that, everything goes downhill. Achilles is shot by Paris in his heel, and dies. Odysseus is lost at sea, and that is the other side of the pyramid.

Of course Aristotle didn't use the term pyramid, because that was an Egyptian thing, and Aristotle was damned if he was going to use Egyptian terminology, so he called it something different.

The pont is, Aristotle used this story to represent every story and said, "This is how a good story should be."

Th direct dialogue was also a great thing that Aristotle said made this a good story, because through this use, Homer was able to use drama in poetry and story telling, which was new at this time. Drama was kept on the stage, and poetry was rather dry and only told in 5th person, such as "I heard from this guy who said this guy was pretty cool."

Rather you are able to find out why Achilles was so cool, directly from his own mouth.

And Aristotle said that Achilles was cool, and Aristotle is so cool because he learned from Plato, who learned from Socrates, and the reason we know Aristotle was so cool because his scrolls were the first rescued from the Library of Alexandria when it burned. And why was this? Because he taught Alexander and Alexander ruled the known world at the time.

We are lucky that it wasn't some hack that taught Alexander, or we might have a story about dog wars or something stupid.