Well we know there was a group, the Homeridae (Children of Homer), the question is did they descend from Homer in some way, or did they make him up.
“....no weaker Authority than the ingenious Pindar’s the Prince of the Lyricks: He lets us know , that the Homeridae ( a family in Chios, thought to be desended from our Poet) followed the occupation of their Founder, and were for the most part ,what he calls Singers of flowing Verse....”
“....but the Composition of one Cynaethus; a Chian too, and a great Rhapsodist, who has the honour to be the first man to sing Homer’s Works in Sicily; and who is said to have been the author of a good many of the Verses, that pass under the poet’s name in the Iliad and Odyssey. These Poems. they tell you , Homer did not commit to writting himself; but his posterity in Chios, and the Rhapsodists whoo were for ever repeating , had got them by heart; and his Cynaethus, their chief, while he preserved Homer’s Verses, and put them together , did intermix a good many of his own invention......”
(Thomas Blackwell, 1757)
The Ancients are convinced of his existence.
The second paragraph adds credence to the ‘Ghost writer” theory.
It doesn’t prove anything beyond all reasonable doubt ,but has a certain plausibility to it ,imho. :)