Yes he was
The Greek poet Homer<span> was born sometime between the 12th and 8th centuries BC, possibly somewhere on the coast of Asia Minor. He is famous for the epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey, which have had an enormous effect on Western culture, but very little is known about their alleged author.</span>
If the verb in the independent clause is in the present tense, the tense that the verb in the indirect quotation should be is remain in its original tense.
You don't have to shift tenses because it is present in the independent one.
For example:
He says: "I need to wash my hair."
He says that he needs to wash his hair.
You wouldn't say - he says that he needed to wash his hair.
The sentence is using the word like so i think simile
The literary device used is a simile because the word like is used
Chekhov uses language to show the change in the lawyer's outlook on life by making the lawyer's diction gloomier.