Constantine Antypas
Abstract
Is there a government in Ithaca before and after Odysseus’ departure for Troy? How can his lieutenant, Eurylochus, openly disobey his orders? Is Odysseus the commander of the Ithacan flotilla or does he command only his own ship? Why did Odysseus not order the crews of the other eleven ships to moor off the trap port of the Laestrygonians as he did with his own ship? Why does the execution of the suitors by Odysseus seem as a personal revenge, having nothing to do with the punitive reaction of a restored political authority? Finally, what is the kind of authority Odysseus has over the society of Ithaca? We will try to answer these questions, beginning with the two seemingly political titles attributed to Odysseus: anax and basileus.1
Anax
In the Homeric epics, the term anax has the quality of an archaism, commonly used in formulae2 as an honorary title for gods, seers, respected persons, noblemen, military leaders, lords of a house, and masters of animals.3 We could understand the term anax as lord, master or owner, but any connotation concerning a high governmental authority is simply occasional. Similar uses of Semitic parallel terms prove that this semantic evolution occurred in many areas of Mesopotamia and Eastern Mediterranean;4 for example, the Assyrian term bēlu, originally meaning ‘ruler’, in literature,5 became an expression of respect.6
Basileus
The history of the terms basileus, βασιλεύς (for men – plural basileis, βασιλεῖς or basilēes, βασιλῆες) and basileia, βασίλεια (for women) virtually reflects the big picture of the political evolution from the Mycenaean to the Early Archaic period. We assume that the Mycenaean basileus (qa-si-re-u) was a hereditary local official outside the palatial center, a chief magistrate of a small community, perhaps also serving as a priest.7 In the second half of the twelfth century BCE, the major Mycenaean polities disintegrated and the palatial hierarchies disappeared, but the basileis gained glamor and power; their small communities became independent and the basileis remained at the top of the local hierarchy, but now without having to report to any central sovereign (wanax). The upgrade of the status of the basileus had started shortly before the collapse of the Mycenaean palatial authorities: for example, archaeological evidence proves that small independent communities headed by a warlord had emerged in Cephalonia and in Achaea during the twelfth century BCE.8
The excavation in Lefkandi (Euboea) offered valuable information about the status of these warlords or local chiefs in the tenth and ninth centuries BCE: they lived in mansions, distinct from the houses of the commoners, they obtained valuable and, sometimes, antique prestige objects, they controlled the resources from trade and exploited the economic and political capital originating from their supposed divine ancestry.9
But, according to the archaeological findings dating to the tenth and the ninth centuries BCE, no tangible evidence of articulate state organization has been identified in the small polities on the Greek peninsula and the surrounding islands.10 Obviously, the signified of the word basileus continued to evolve, in line with the evolutionary process of social organization, but no trace of these semantic changes could be detected until the emergence of the Greek alphabetic writing: the earliest written evidence for this signified of the term basileus – after the Mycenaean era – is found in Archaic poetry.
But, poetry has its own perspective on the world and, in our case, the poet of the Odyssey11 applies an archaizing patina on the narrative and, probably, omits some very recent developments; on the other hand, he surely constructs his fiction on details that were part of the audience’s reality,12 in order to achieve the kēlēthmos (κηληθμός – spell, fascination) of this audience.13 In any case, the realistic elements from the eighth century BCE (if the Odyssey took its fixed written form around that time) were modified to fit into the spirit of the poem. The references to the Heroic Age are more or less the background for the action and are usually expressed by fossilized formulae; probably the Greeks of the Archaic period knew but a few things about the previous two or three centuries, the so-called Dark Age.14 So, our task is to discuss the meaning of the terms basileus – basileia within the strict context of the Odyssey.
a. On Ithaca, the terms basileus and basileia have nothing to do with an acting royal or governmental title. Outside Ithaca, the basileis are actual kings: the basileus-king of Sidon,15 the basileus of the Laestrygonians,16 the basileus of the Thesprotians17 and, finally, Alcinous, the king of the Phaeacians; also, the constitutional idiosyncrasy of 13 basileis constitutes the government of the Phaeacian state.18 We must, however, recall that in the Odyssey only the societies of Ithaca and Phaeacia are sufficiently described;19 but even though Phaeacia has the features of an overseas20 Greek colony, founded by relocated refugees,21 we cannot ignore its utopian, almost superhuman political dimension.22 Another ‘society’ sufficiently described in the Odyssey is that of Olympus: Zeus rules through networks of power, successful negotiations, and compliance with obligations; in any case, he “has to negotiate his position among lesser but still influential figures.”23 Zeus acts as a typical human monarch, but in the Odyssey he is never called a basileus: obviously, such a title would not fit the prestige of the father of gods and men.
b. The word basileus is often an adjective, with comparative and superlative forms (basileuteros, βασιλεύτερος – basileutatos, βασιλεύτατος).24 As an adjective, it does not designate a specific social position but rather reflects a feeling of respect or reverence towards a person.
c. Every nobleman, without exception, may be addressed as basileus.25
It is obvious that the terms anax and basileus designate the high status of Odysseus and his house, but do not make him a king. Of course, Odysseus and his heir have the right to a chair in the assembly of the Ithacans;26 the office of dikaspolos (judge, or better, referee) belongs to the head of the house of Odysseus;27 and finally, the house (oikos) of Odysseus is the noblest on the island.28 However, a negative element is much more prominent: in the Odyssey we cannot find a single reference to the existence of a central government or to an actual ruler of Ithaca.
The situation seems more complicated if we consider some anomalous dynastic issues: How did Odysseus succeed Laertes, since there is no hint of an abdication or of a coup d’état? Why did Laertes not play an active political role during the twenty-year absence of his son? Why did Penelope not assume the regency of minor Telemachus, since the institution of female regents was not unknown in Eastern Mediterranean and Mesopotamia?29 There is no answer to these questions, because in the Odyssean Ithaca there is no succession, no dynasty, no kingship, no government, but political vacuum and uncertainty.30
If this is true, which were the claims of the suitors when they decided to invade the house of the supposedly dead Odysseus? What would Penelope’s second spouse gain? The Odyssey leaves no doubt: the unmarried representatives of the noble houses of Ithaca and the surrounding islands had the right to ask Penelope in marriage, seven years after the end of the Trojan war and Odysseus’ disappearance; after the marriage, the household (oikos) of Odysseus would be dissolved, the new husband would take Odysseus’ mansion along with Penelope’s hand and the other suitors would share Odysseus’ property among them; these and no more.31 Therefore, the suitors did not claim a throne of kingship or the leadership of a central government, for the simple reason that these authorities did not exist anymore or did not exist yet.
But the political vacuum was still there: if, officially, the suitors had no claims on political authority, their leaders could hardly conceal their ambitions: in Mnesterophonia, the suitor Eurymachus, in his effort to save his life, tries to convince Odysseus with three arguments:
a. Antinous, the most disrespectful among the suitors, was to blame for all, mainly for the conspiracy against the life of Telemachus and his secret plot to become king of Ithaca.32
b. Odysseus must spare Eurymachus’ life, because he is one of his subjects (σὺ δὲ φείδεο λαῶν σῶν).33
c. The suitors will recompense Odysseus; they will gather the sum of the compensation by taxing the people (ἀτὰρ ἄμμες ὄπισθεν ἀρεσσάμενοι κατὰ δῆμον).34
There is nothing unnatural in Antinous’ political ambition: the vacuum must be filled and the most prominent of the suitors reasonably wants to take advantage of it and become an autocrat. But two terms used by Eurymachus need more attention: lāos (λαός) and dēmos (δῆμος).
Lāos
In the Odyssey, the word lāos (λαός)35 can be understood as ‘folk’,36 ‘crowd’37 or ‘military’.38 Its etymology is not clear, but probably lāos derives from the proto-Indo-European or pre-Greek *leh2-uo- ‘band of people’.39 The phonetic similarity between lāos and lāas (stone) reinforced or created the myth of the birth of human beings from stones thrown by Deucalion, after a deluge wiped out humanity.40 In the Archaic epic, the “laoi are never far from the state from which they spring,”41 the inertia of the stone.
In any case, inertia is not inactivity and in the Homeric texts lāos plays an important role, even if in the Odyssey this role is overshadowed by the actions of two other social groups interacting with Odysseus: the companions (hetairoi – ἑταῖροι) and the suitors (mnēstēres – μνηστῆρες).42 The word lāos is usually found in similes43 and the Odyssean lāos does not take part in the action, except in two cases:
In the first, Odysseus gives an identity to himself and to his companions towards Cyclops: “we are lāoi of Agamemnon.”44 In the second, Eurymachus begs Odysseus: “do not kill me, because I am one of your lāoi.” In both cases, the word lāos designates a bipolar relation in which the most powerful pole has an interest in keeping the weaker pole alive: in the first case, Polyphemus would theoretically provoke the vengeful power of Agamemnon, if his attitude towards the strangers was not proper; in the second, Odysseus will kill a member of his folk, so he will cancel his function as ‘shepherd of the people’ (ποιμὴν λαῶν).45
Dēmos
The term dēmos (δῆμος) means ‘land’,46 ‘community’47 or ‘people’.48 The word probably derives from the proto-Indo-European *deh2-mo- (‘people’).49 Dēmos “designates the largest conceivable social unit; beyond its boundaries, there is no community.”50 Although both lāos and dēmos could be translated in many cases as ‘people’, there is a fundamental semantic difference between them: inertia is not a feature of dēmos; it reacts and provokes reactions. Penelope is afraid that dēmos of Achaean women will blame her, if she misbehaves;51 Mentor accuses dēmos of Ithacans that its attitude towards the house of Odysseus was inappropriate;52 Nausicaa knows that she cannot avoid the gossip of dēmos of Phaeacians, if someone sees her in company with Odysseus.53
More enlightening is the use of the adjective dēmios (δήμιος – ‘belonging to the public’,54 ‘relating to public interest’,55 ‘elected by the people’).56 Dēmios indicates that on Ithaca (and not only there) a dynamic public space does exist.
On Ithaca, when Telemachus convenes the assembly of the people, he tries to reconstitute a “public space … vacant for twenty years.”57 Athena’s help is crucial for the success of his effort. We will see later how Athena intervenes in the final political actions of her protégés, Odysseus and his son; for now, it is necessary to discuss some functions of the Ithacan public space.
Firstly, someone who has such an authority convenes a session of the assembly of dēmos in a specially defined open place called agorē (ἀγορή). In our case, the person who convenes the assembly is Telemachus and his authority comes from inheritance: he is the legal heir of Odysseus. It is not clear who has the right to be a member of the assembly, but it seems that any free adult male member of an oikos (‘household’) on Ithaca could participate in the session. In the assembly, only the elite has the right to speak and the first speaker, a kind of president of the session, is a respectable elder, Aegyptius, who also has the privilege of neutrality: he is a close friend of Odysseus and one of his sons, now devoured by Cyclops, was a companion of Odysseus, but another one of his sons is a member of the group of suitors.58 The question of Aegyptius is perfectly clear: did Telemachus ask the people of Ithaca to gather for a public (dēmios) issue?59 It seems that after the twenty-year political vacuum, dēmos, even indirectly, even through the voice of an old aristocrat, wants to know what is going on.
In two instances, the adjective dēmios is set as an opposite to the adjective idios (ἴδιος – ‘private’).60 It is obvious that the concept of public space is distinct from private interest and well established in the Odyssey.61
In the assembly of Ithacans, dēmos listens and judges silently but nobody asks its opinion – although the members of the elite try to avoid its disapproval. In Phaeacia, this is slightly different: dēmos could elect nine minor officials, the stewards of the games.62 But in both Ithaca and Phaeacia, if the elite want to collect gifts for a special guest or to recompense an offended lord, the way is always the same: dēmos must pay for it.63
The term anax has nothing to do with institutionalized authority; basileus designates only a high social status in Ithaca; the members of laos act as soldiers, want protection by their leader, but never decide; dēmos approves or disapproves, fills the public space, maybe elects the judges of an athletic game, but never expresses its opinion openly.
Yet, the society of Ithaca should be organized in some way. In order to comprehend this organization, we must examine the relations connecting persons, families and interest groups; here, the baseline terms are not words expressing a virtual authority like anax or basileus, or words with so broad significance such as lāos and dēmos, but the terms oikos and hetairos, the first signified an actual social unit while the second an actual social alliance.
Oikos
The word oikos (οἶκος) derives from the proto-Indo-European root *ueiḱ- or *uoiḱ-, which originally meant a settlement of families linked to each other by consanguinity.64 The Greek Archaic oikos65 was a smaller, but more tight-knit unit. According to the evidence from the Archaic epics, mostly from the Odyssey, the leading nucleus of a noble oikos consists of three generations; the grandparents, the parents and the offspring of the parents; the leader of the oikos is the mature and fully functional male of the second generation: the pattern Laërtes / Anticlea – Odysseus / Penelope – Telemachus is typical of this structure.
Groups of servants (oikeis – οἰκεῖς),66 usually bought by the lords of the house,67 live and work around the dominant nucleus. The male oikeis normally work outside the main mansion as farmers or shepherds. Under special circumstances, they could create their own small household68 and, after many years of faithful service, may establish their own oikos, dependent, of course, on the master’s house.69 They report to the master and, under his leadership, they fight against enemy houses.70
The female servants71 work under the direction of the lady of the house, inside the mansion. They produce textiles,72 they store and distribute the aliments,73 and they look after the members of the house74 and the guests.75 Some of the trusted female servants rise to the house hierarchy, as nursemaids76 or chief stewardesses.77 Their commitment to the house also involves sexual loyalty towards the master.78
The guests (xeinoi – ξεῖνοι) enjoy a special status in the oikos. The Homeric term xeinos (ξεῖνος) does not mean simply a person who receives the hospitality; furthermore, the hospitality offered by the host, the xenia (ξενία), is not simply a moral obligation. The relations of xenia create affinity bonds between houses in geographically distinct communities.79 The arrival of a xeinos entails the offer of protection, housing and food from the oikos who offers hospitality; as a matter of fact, the xeinos becomes a member of the hosting house for as long as he stays in the community of the latter. An additional obligation of the host is the offer of a gift to his xeinos at the time of his departure. The institution of xenia, with its complex ritual and its reciprocal obligations, extends the influence of the house in other remote communities and enables an amical and secure intercommunity exchange of goods and information, in an era when travel was definitely a dangerous enterprise.80
Inside the community, a powerful house, like this of Odysseus, can build a patronage structure comprising houses of lower rank relatives (etai – ἔται, singular etēs – ἔτης) and dependent or collaborating houses (hetairoi – ἑταῖροι, singular hetairos – ἑταῖρος). Both words derive from proto-Indo-European roots belonging to neighboring semantic fields: etēs from *sue-t- (‘own, relative’) and hetairos from the reflexive pronoun *se- (thus is cognate with the Greek pronoun he [ἕ, ἑ], the Latin se, or the modern English self).81
The management of material assets is another issue of major concern. The mansion of the lords is the vital center of the oikos. Outside the mansion, the production units consist of farmlands82 and animal pounds,83 along with rural cottages.84 Ingots of metal, valuable textiles and precious artifacts (keimēlia – κειμήλια) are kept in a warehouse inside the main mansion.85 The possession of keimēlia is necessary for the procedure of xenia: the hosting lord (xeinodokos – ξεινοδόκος) offers one or more of these valuable objects as a hospitality gift to his xeinos, expecting a gift of equal value when the roles host – xeinos will be reversed.86
The livestock (probatα – πρόβατα or probasis – πρόβασις) is the moving capital of the house.87 Finally, an essential asset consists of decay-resisting edible goods: wine, olive oil and cereals.88 The old wine is a prestige symbol, but the stored olive oil and cereals could be used for purposes of patronage strategies: a portion of them could be distributed or lent, in order to strengthen the attachment of the ally or subordinated houses to the leading one.
The Odyssean noble house is a highly organized and coherently hierarchized social unit; it produces its own aliments and goods (usually creating a surplus), it can defend itself with an armed force, it attempts to extend its influence inside its own community by patronage bonds (etai – hetairoi) or outside its own community by cooperation with other powerful houses (xenoi).
The Hetairoi
In the Odyssey, the word hetairos (ἑταῖρος) appears 162 times: 144 times in the plural and only 18 in the singular. This overwhelming use of the plural indicates that hetairoi constitute a collectivity tied with its leader not only with bonds of personal relation of friendship or submission, but with more sophisticated social connections. The hetairoi are positively qualified (as noble, divine or brave ones) when they follow the decisions of the leader,89 but they are vilified as villain or coward90 when they disobey his orders and make their own decisions. On the other hand, the leader is responsible for the welfare and the safety of the hetairoi; for example, Odysseus must secure their return home after the end of the Trojan War: in the lands of the Ciconians and the Lotus-eaters, in Cyclops’ cave, on Circe’s island, in the strait of Scylla and Charybdis, Odysseus succeeds to save them, even with some inevitable losses.
The total loss of the Odysseus’ hetairoi resulted from their disdain towards the advice of their leader: they opened the bag of winds;91 they moored inside the strange harbor of Laestrygonians and did not follow the example of Odysseus who preferred to stay outside this trap port;92 and finally, they provoked their capital punishment by devouring the immortal cattle of Helios.93 How could they so openly disobey? I think the answer is obvious: they do not have to obey, because the concept of a fleet commander, even the very concept of a fleet, does not exist in the Odyssey;94 otherwise, Odysseus would order or at least advise the crews of the other eleven ships to avoid the fatal entrance into the Laestrygonian port.
The hetairoi of Odysseus remain nameless, with only a few exceptions like Polites, Elpenor, and Eurylochus. The behavior of Eurylochus offers some very enlightening hints: he is the lieutenant of Odysseus95 not by reason of his skills or his abilities, but because of affinity from marriage: he is the husband of Ctimene, Odysseus’ sister;96 he constantly undermines the leadership of Odysseus and, in the end, in Thrinakia, despises the advice of his leader and urges the remaining hetairoi to commit a major and fatal crime: to feast with the meat of the immortal cattle.97
In the patrilocal society of Ithaca, Ctimene is no longer a member of Odysseus’ house, but of Eurylochus’ house; thus, the appointment of Eurylochus as lieutenant indicates a strategy of alliance between houses, although the undermining of Odysseus’ leadership by his brother-in-law indicates, in turn, a kind of competition for the control of this interconnected web of houses.
There is another group of hetairoi, who remained on Ithaca and did not follow Odysseus to the war: Mentor, Antiphus, and Halitherses. Telemachus calls them ‘paternal hetairoi’98 and this raises another question: why did they not join Odysseus’ expedition twenty years ago? The complaint of the suitor Leocritus that these ‘paternal hetairoi’ encouraged Telemachus to sail for Peloponnese to collect information about the fate of his father99 and, on the other hand, the straightforward statement that Odysseus himself had entrusted Mentor the guardianship of his house100 lead to the hypothesis that these three persons stayed back home in order to advocate the interest of Odysseus’ house.
If there is no option or any concept of a central government in Ithaca, then Odysseus is not exactly a king, but a very respectful and powerful lord, head of a very respectful and powerful house, or more precisely, of a web of houses connected by bonds of patronage. This web of houses offered almost all of its resources in ships and warriors to the expedition in Troy. The absence of Odysseus and his supporters gave other noblemen the opportunity to invade his house, plunder his goods, exploit the services of his maids and, most importantly, threaten the very existence of the house conspiring against the life of Telemachus, the only heir and successor. The three remaining hetairoi of Odysseus could not resist this bold invasion: the correlation of forces was not favorable and would remain unfavorable even after the execution of 108 suitors by Odysseus and his few men.
The Mythical Birth of a Polis
The Odyssey is a poem and must be read as poem despite the fact that its fiction gets constructed on a frame of mythicized realistic elements from many different times and many different places.101 Our purpose in the last section of this chapter is not to strip the realistic elements from their mythical attire, but to reconstruct, as far as possible, the Odyssean political myth of the society of Ithaca.
So … Once upon a time, there was an island named Ithaca. On this island there was a town. Odysseus was the lord of the town, a real father of his people and a great leader of his soldiers. The departure of Odysseus and his faithful men for a war far away, in the land of Troy, had a fatal effect on Ithaca: nobody was in charge of the city and even the word basileus lost its meaning: it no longer meant a king, but simply a person of the elite.
Seventeen years had passed since Odysseus and his army left Ithaca, and a new generation of aristocrats had developed on the island. These men, taking advantage of the power vacuum, decided to invade Odysseus’ household as suitors of his supposedly widow. Most of them had no political aspirations: they just wanted to marry Penelope and divide among them the property of Odysseus’ household. But one suitor, Antinous, had hidden thoughts: he wanted to impose his own power on Ithaca and become a king.
Though there was not an articulated state authority in the acephalous society of Ithaca, a number of hierarchical and powerful entities, the oikoi, operated in it and tried to gain influence and preponderance by constructing a web of alliance with other, lesser, oikoi and a connection with oikoi in other societies.
From another standpoint, something new is generated on Ithaca. An embryonic polis has already taken shape inside the womb of this society: a community, an assembly of people, an urban center and its hinterland, a meeting place did exist; but the political institutions that are the prerequisites for the transmutation of a society into polis had not been created: the community – commoners and elites – was not yet a community of citizens, the assembly was gathering and listening but could not discuss, vote and decide; also, there was no mention of official authorities.
Suddenly, Odysseus, the vanished king, re-appeared on the island, having lost all his comrades not because of his incompetence but because of their major errors. Disguised as a beggar, he tried to assess the situation and calculate the correlation of forces before acting. He was not alone. First, a divine power, the goddess Athena, was at his side; secondly, his son and a handful of servants were willing to help him. Odysseus’ plan was not the restoration of his old authority: this was impossible, because almost all the supporters of Odysseus’ fraction on the island had embarked with him for Troy and perished in a world of Others, populated by monsters, witches and strange creatures; the few of his supporters he purposely left behind on Ithaca, in order to protect his household and his interests, were now old and, although respectable, their power was insignificant after twenty years of political uncertainty.
Odysseus’ first move was to take control of his own household; after all, on Ithaca, noble households, like that of Odysseus, were the only fully hierarchical organized social entities, the only units having important military and economic power. So, Odysseus wanted to regain his household for a start.
He and his men managed, with Athena’s help, to exterminate all those who plotted against his household. Of course, this was an act of revenge and after the murder of the suitors, only the moral order was restored; the political issue remained unsolved.
The society of Ithaca was doomed to self-destruct. The armed forces of the house of Odysseus – that is to say, the twelve remaining males102 – had to confront several of the suitors’ houses. The majority of the noblemen decided to stay neutral but no other house was arrayed with Odysseus for the upcoming battle.
Athena intervened once again – and, maybe, this was her most peculiar act in the Odyssey: in the 24th and last Book of the epic, the goddess no longer supports explicitly her beloved Odysseus. She stood in the middle and tried to reconcile the two fighting fractions. She had probably seen what the human eye could not see: the fetus of the polis. The society, without an articulated state structure, could not survive: either the houses would reconcile themselves constructing a coherent polity, or the community would self-destruct in a civil war; either the independent webs of power, hierarchy and contacts would gather together in order to build a state entity, a polis, or the houses would decline and decay by controversies.
Of course, in the 24th Book there is no question regarding citizens and their society, self-governing or institutions. The poet did not know what was going to happen next. He only knew that a novel polity was about to be born and should be born. In the last verses of the Odyssey, Athena’s peacekeeping intervention, after the first skirmish between Odysseus and his opponents, seems like a wish, like a step towards a political future still unknown; therefore, the poet decides to stay silent.
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Notes
1
For a detailed discussion of the Homeric terms ἄναξ and βασιλεύς, see Yamagata (1997).
2
E.g.: The formula ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν Ἀγαμέμνων appears fifty-six times in the Iliad and the Odyssey.
3
Examples for these uses of the term ἄναξ: for a god, Il. 1.36; for a seer, Od. 11.151; for a respectful person, Od. 18.299; for noblemen or lords, Od. 14.59–61; for a head of a house, Od. 1.397–398; for a master of animals, Il. 16.370–371.
4
West (1997) 546–547.
5
E.g. Gilgamesh, I. 39.
6
Oppenheim (1968) 192–198.
7
Carlier (1995); Lenz (1993) 92–104; Carlier (2006); Mazarakis (2006). Examples for the status of Mycenaean βασιλεῖς: inscriptions PY Un 2 and PY Jo 438 (Ventris-Chadwick [1973] 221, 358–359).
8
Deger-Jalkotzy (2006) 173, table 1.
9
Drews (1983); van Wees (1992); Carlier (1995); Weiler (2001); Hall (2014) 71. Excavations in Lefkandi: Popham-Sackett (1968); Kalligas (1984); Popham-Lemos (1996); Coucouzeli (1999); Lemos (2002) 140–146, 161–168.
10
Zagora (Andros), an urban and rich community of the Early Iron Age, is a typical example. For the results of excavations in Zagora, see Cambitoglou et al. (1971); Cambitoglou et al. (1988). For the question of its political organization, see Hansen (2006) 44.
11
We use the words ‘poet of the Odyssey’ conventionally, since the questions on the poet(s) of the Odyssey and its composition are beyond the scope of this chapter.
12
Raaflaub (1997) 647; Hammer (2009) 18.
13
Od. 13.2.
14
Osborne (20092) 51.
15
Od. 4.618.
16
Od. 10.110.
17
Od. 14.316, 19.287.
18
E.g. they impose and collect taxes: Od. 13.14–15.
19
Raaflaub (1997) 629.
20
Hansen (2006) 42.
21
Morgan (2003) 164.
22
Hall (2014) 72–73.
23
Brock (2013) 85.
24
Βασιλεύτερος: Il. 9.160, Od. 15.533; βασιλεύτατος: Il. 9.69.
25
E.g. in the Odyssey, the suitors are called βασιλῆες (Od. 1.394–395, 18.64, 20.222, 24.179). Minor heroes and persons are also called βασιλῆες: Il. 4.338, 13.643, 21.219, 23.631, 23,849. Od. 4.618 = 15.118, 14.316, 14.336, 18.85 = 18.116 = 21.308, 19.287.
26
Od. 2.14.
27
Οd. 11.185–186.
28
Od. 15.533–534.
29
The most famous of these female regents during the ninth century BCE are probably Athaliah of Judah and Sammu-rāmat of Assyria (the legendary Semiramis of Herodotus).
30
Osborne (2006) 212.
31
Od. 16.384–392; Gartziou-Tatti (2014).
32
Od. 22.53–54.
33
Od. 22.54–55.
34
Od. 22.55.
35
For a full discussion on the term lāos, see Haubold (2000).
36
E.g. Od. 2.13.
37
E.g. Od. 2.81.
38
E.g. Od. 9.263.
39
Beekes (2010) 832.
40
For early recordings of the myth: Il. 24.611; Hes. fr. 234.
41
Haubold (2000) 43.
42
Haubold (2000) 46.
43
Ποιμὴν λαῶν and ὄρχαμος λαῶν are the most common of these similes. For a full list of the similes including the word λαός in the Homeric epic, see Haubold (2000) appendices A and B, 197–202.
44
Od. 9.263.
45
“The metaphor of the shepherd implies that the chief has the responsibility for ensuring the safety of the people, but imposes no responsibilities or obligations upon the people toward their leader. When the people perish, this is because the leader has failed in his shepherding role,” Osborne (2009b) 120.
46
E.g. Od. 1.103.
47
E.g. Od. 2.239.
48
E.g. Od. 2.366.
49
Beekes (2010) 325.
50
Raaflaub (1997) 629.
51
Od. 2.101.
52
Od. 2.239.
53
Od. 6.273–274.
54
E.g. Od. 20.264.
55
E.g. Od. 3.82.
56
Od. 8.258–259.
57
Hammer (2009) 23.
58
Od. 2.17–22.
59
Od. 2.25–34.
60
Od. 3.82, 4.314.
61
Another political concept which also fundamentally shapes the political space is eunomiē (εὐνομίη) vs hybris (ὕβρις). For a discussion of this concept in the Odyssey, see Raaflaub (2009) 49–50.
62
If the adjective κριτοί in the phrase “αἰσυμνῆται δὲ κριτοὶ ἐννέα πάντες ἀνέσταν δήμιοι” has the meaning of ‘elected’, as we believe.
63
Ihaca: Od. 22.55; Phaeacia: Od. 13.14–15.
64
Pokorny (1959) 1131; Szemerényi (1977) 24 n. 85, 33–34, 96, 100, 151, 195, 205; Chantraine (1968) 782; Benveniste (1969) vol. 1, 293–318; Beekes (2010) 1056.
65
For a discussion about Homeric οἶκος, also see Adrados (1990); Nicolai (1990); Kakridis (1990); Birgalias (2014) 28–32, 161–167.
66
Οἰκεύς – οἰκεῖς is a general term for the servants, male or female, of the Homeric οἶκος. The male servants are called also δμῶες (e.g. Il. 19.33, Od. 1.98) ὑποδμῶες – (e.g. Od. 4.386), δρηστῆρες – (e.g. Od. 16.248), ὑποδρηστῆρες (e.g. Od. 15.339).
67
E.g. Od.14.4.
68
Od. 14. 285–286 and 449–451.
69
Od. 21.209–216.
70
Od. 24.492–527.
71
Δμῳαί (e.g.: Il. 6.375, Od. 1.147), δρήστειραι (Od. 10.349, 19.345).
72
E.g. Od. 6.52–53.
73
E.g. Od. 2.343–356.
74
E.g. Od. 1.428–442.
75
E.g. Od. 1.136–140.
76
E.g. τροφὸς Ευρύκλεια (Od. 2.361).
77
E.g. Εὐρυνόμη ταμίη (Od. 16.154).
78
E.g. Od. 22.444–445.
79
E.g. Il. 6.251.
80
For the economic importance of the gift exchange in the Homeric and pre-monetary societies: Mauss (1970); Finley (1977) 49–66, 120–123; Cheal (1988); Hooker (1989); Donlan (1997); Kristiansen (1998) ch. 6.
81
Chantraine (1968) 381; Beekes (2010) 473.
82
E.g. Od. 1.190.
83
E.g. Od. 14.5–17.
84
E.g. Od. 24.208.
85
E.g. Od. 1.99–108.
86
E.g. Od. 1.316–18.
87
E.g. Od. 14.96–104. For the meaning of the terms κειμήλιον, πρόβατον and πρόβασις: Benveniste (1969) vol. 1, 37.
88
E.g. Od. 2.339–342 and 354–355.
89
E.g. ἀντίθεοι, Od. 4.571; ἄριστοι, Od. 9.195; ἐρίηροι, Od. 9.100; ἐυκνήμιδες, Od. 9.60; ἴφθιμοι, Od. 20.20; πιστοί, Od. 14.100; φίλοι, Od. 9.63.
90
E.g. δειλοί, Od. 9.65; κακοί, Od. 8.68; λυγροί, Οd. 9.454.
91
Od. 10.34–47.
92
Od. 10.91–96.
93
Od. 12.339–365.
94
Antypas (2019) 372–378.
95
Od. 10.205.
96
Schol. Od. 10.441.
97
Od. 12.340–351.
98
Od. 17.69.
99
Od. 2.253–254.
100
Od. 2.225–227.
101
For example: The first written text of the Odyssey is probably a product of the eighth century BCE, but Odysseus has the qualities of an explorer hero of the Bronze Age (Kristiansen-Larson [2005]); on the other hand, the connections between Homeric epics and similar Eastern Mediterranean and Mesopotamian literary genres are sufficiently proven (West [1997]; Haubold [2002]; Bachvarova [2005]).
102
Od. 24.497.