The Homeric Age

THE HOMERIC AGE Alike in Crete and on the mainland the civilization disclosed by excavation comes abruptly to an end. In Crete we can trace it back from c. 1200 B.C. to the Neolithic period. From the Stone Age to the end of the Minoan age the development is continuous and uninterrupted. But between the culture of the Early Age and the culture of the Dorians, who occupied the island in his torical times, no connection whatever can be established. Between the two there is a great gulf fixed. It Would be difficult to imagine a greater contrast than that presented by the rude life of the Dorian communities in Crete when compared with the political power, the material resources and the extensive commerce of the earlier period. The same gap between the archaeological age and the historical exists on the mainland also. The solution of con tinuity is here less complete. Mycenaean art continues, here and there, in a debased form down to the 9th century, a date to which we can trace back the beginnings of the later Greek art. On one or two lines (e.g., architecture) it is even possible to establish some sort of connection between them. But Greek art as a whole cannot have evolved from Mycenaean art. We cannot bridge over the interval that separates the latter art, even in its decline, from the former. What then is the relation of the Heroic or Homeric Age (i.e., the age whose life is portrayed for us in the poems of Homer) to the Earliest Age? It, too, presents many contrasts to the later periods. On the other hand, it presents con trasts to the Minoan Age, which, in their way, are not less strik ing. Is it then to be identified with the Mycenaean Age? Schlie mann unhesitatingly identified Mycenaean with Homeric. He even identified the shaft-graves of Mycenae with the tombs of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. Subsequent inquirers, while re fusing to discover so literal a correspondence between things Homeric and things Mycenaean, did accept a general correspond ence between the Homeric Age and the Mycenaean. Where it is a case of comparing literary evidence with archaeological, an exact coincidence is not of course to be demanded. The case for a general correspondence appears prima facie a strong one. Much in Homer seems to find confirmation or explanation in Schlie mann's finds. Mycenae is Agamemnon's city ; the plan of the Homeric house agrees fairly well with the palaces at Tiryns and Mycenae ; the forms and the technique of Mycenaean art serve to illustrate passages in the poems ; such are only a few of the arguments that have been urged. The late Professor Ridgeway demonstrated, once and for all, that Mycenaean is not Homeric pure and simple. He insisted upon differences as great as the resemblances. Iron is in common use in Homer; it is practically unknown to the Mycenaeans. The Homeric dead are cremated; the Mycenaean are buried. The gods of Homer are the deities of Olympus, of whose cult no traces are to be found in the Mycenaean Age. It can hardly be doubted that Professor Ridge way has succeeded in proving that much that is Homeric is post Mycenaean. It is possible that different strata are to be distin guished in the Homeric poems. There are passages which seem to assume the conditions of the Mycenaean Age ; others presup pose the conditions of a later age. The latter passages may reflect the circumstances of the poet's own times, while the former ones reproduce those of an earlier period. If so, the substitution of iron for bronze must have been effected in the interval between the earlier and the later periods.

The Homeric State.

The question whether the makers of the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations were Greeks must still be regarded as open. No such question can be raised as to the Homeric Age. The Achaeans may or may not have been Greek in blood. What is certain is that the Achaean Age forms an in tegral part of Greek history. Alike on the religious and the politi cal sides, Homer is the starting-point of subsequent developments. With regard to religion it is sufficient to refer to the judgment of Herodotus, that it was Homer and Hesiod who were the authors of the Greek theogony (ii. 53 ovroi flat 7roc7oavrEs OEoyovivv "EXAflve). It is a commonplace that Homer was the Bible of the Greeks. On the political side, Greek constitutional develop ment would be unintelligible without Homer. When Greek his tory, in, the proper sense, begins, oligarchy is almost universal. Everywhere, however, an antecedent stage of monarchy has to be presupposed. In the Homeric system monarchy is the sole form of government, but monarchy already well on the way to being transformed into oligarchy. In the person of the king are united the functions of priest, of judge, and of leader in war. He belongs to a family which claims divine descent and his office is hereditary. He is no despotic monarch. He is compelled by custom to consult the council (boucle) of the elders, or chiefs. He must ask their opinion, and, if he fails to obtain their consent, he has no power to enforce his will. Even when he has obtained the consent of the council, the proposal still awaits the approval of the assembly (agora) of the people.

Homeric Society.

Thus in the Homeric state we find the germs not only of the oligarchy and democracy of later Greece, but also of all the various forms of constitution known to the Western world. And a monarchy such as is depicted in the Ho meric poems is clearly ripe for transmutation into oligarchy. The chiefs are addressed as kings (basilees), and claim, equally with the monarch, descent from the gods. In Homer, again, we can trace the later organization into tribe (phule), clan (genos), and phratry, which is characteristic of Greek society in the historical period, and meets us in analogous forms in other Aryan societies. The genos corresponds to the Roman gees, the phule to the Ro man tribe, and the phratry to the curia. The importance of the phratry in Homeric society is illustrated by the well-known pas sage (Iliad ix. 63) in which the outcast is described as "one who belongs to no phratry" (aphreton). The society is, of course, based upon slavery, but it is slavery in its least repulsive aspect. The treatment which Eumaeus and Eurycleia receive at the hands of the poet of the Odyssey is highly creditable to the humanity of the age. A society which regarded the slave as a mere chattel would have been impatient of the interest shown in a swineherd and a nurse. It is a society, too, that exhibits many of the dis tinguishing traits of later Greek life. Feasting and quarrels are of more moment to the heroes than to the contemporaries of Pericles or Plato; but "music" and "gymnastic" (understood in a more restricted sense) are as distinctive of the age of Homer as of that of Pindar. There is retrogression in the historical period. Woman in Homeric society enjoys a greater freedom, and receives greater respect, than in the Athens of Sophocles and Pericles.