Social Organization

Government

• Agamemnon vs. other kings
• Ithaca
• Odysseus as king (why not Laertes?)
• Hints of matriarchy?
• Assembly

• "Fighting in the forefront" vs. ranks
• Thersites (Il. 2): the voice from below
• Eumaeus (Od.): the royal swineherd

• Passed down from father to son
• Cemented by formal gift-giving
• Glaucus & Diomedes (Il. 6)
• Odysseus & Phaeacians (Od. 6-12)

"Shame culture" vs. "Guilt culture"

Ruth Benedict, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (1946)

    "... I decided to kill him
With a sharp sword, but some god calmed me down—
Putting in my mind what people would say,
The names they would call me—so that in fact
I would not be known as a parricide."
       (Il. 9.472-476)

  "... grant that this my son
Become, as I am, foremost among Trojans, ...
And may men say he is far better than his father
When he returns from war ..."
       (Il. 6.501-505)

Excellence (aretê) -> Honor (timê) now + Glory (kleos) later

• Boasting/taunting/talking trash
• Close fighting vs. Archery
• Booty: Cattle, women, tripods
• Fighting over corpse (Sarpedon, Patroclus)
• Achilles & Agamemnon

• Achilles (Il. 9)
• Demodocus (Od. 8)
• Phemius (Od. 13-24)

Higher Powers

• "The Will/Plan of Zeus"
• Apollo & plague (Il.1)
• Apollo & Patroclus (Il. 16)

• Thetis ~ Achilles (Il. 1, 18, 24)
• Hera & Athena vs. Trojans
• Zeus ~ Sarpedon (Il. 15)
• Athena ~ Odysseus vs. Poseidon (Od.)

• Hephaestus (Il. 1)
• Wounding of Aphrodite (Il. 5)
• Seduction of Zeus (Il. 14)
• Iris & Poseidon (Il. 15)
• Battle of Gods (Il. 21)
• Ares & Aphrodite (Od. 8)

"Ah, my friend, if you and I could only
Get out of this war alive and then
Be immortal or ageless all of our days,
I would never again fight among the foremost
Or send you into battle where men win glory.
But as it is, death is everywhere
In more shapes than we can count,
And since no mortal is immune or can escape,
Let’s go forward, either to give glory
To another man or get glory from him."

       (Il. 12.333-342)

Mortals aren't Puppets

• Gods unable (unwilling?) to alter fate
• Zeus’s ban on divine intervention
• Absence of magic (e.g. Achilles’s heel)
• Humans as actors, gods as audience