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Editorial Review Product Description
Are the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" just charming poetic fantasies? Or do they give a more or less accurate picture of the Mycenaean period, the early Dark Age of Homer's own era? Do archaeological discoveries like Schliemann's excavations at Troy bear out Homer's account of the Trojan war? The author offers an analysis of Homer's depiction of kinship and community, Helen and Hector, morals and values, Paris, Priam and the gods. ... Read more Customer Reviews (14) 
From the Ashes of Mycenae: The Decline and Rise of Classical Greece
Citadel to City-State: The Transformation of Greece, 1200 - 700 BC (1999) Carol G. Thomas and Thomas Conant (Indiana University Press: Bloomington)
The World of Odysseus (1954, [1974]) Moses I. Finley (New York Review of Books: New York)
Classicists are an odd bunch.They took a specific geography and a specific time period handed them by Renaissance Italians and created an academic discipline divorced from other segments of archeology, architecture, history and literature.This discipline is "Classics."Classicists are often territorial.Mary Lefkowitz's Black Athena Revisited pays lip service to the idea that a non-classicist could study the period but then blasts anybody who does (especially Martin Bernal) as "amateurish."The non-classicist historian, Michael Parenti, questions even the motives of classicists.In the appendix on sources to his 2003 The Assassination of Julius Caesar, Parenti states: "Most present-day historians of antiquity seem determined to make [classic sources] inaccessible, a fact that itself might be indicative of the pedantic and elitist nature of their training" (223).
This elitism and inaccessibility creates a false image of the classical world.Everything from the Fall of Troy (c. 1200 BC) to the Sack of Rome (476 AD) exists at one time.Homer, Socrates and Caesar would hangout together and grab a beer! M.I. Finley comments "The human mind plays strange tricks with time perspective when the distant past is under consideration: centuries become as years and millennia as decades" (7).
Fortunately, I have just read two works that seek to break down ivory walls of classicists and try to build a real image of the timeframe from The Fall of Troy to the rise of Archaic Greece.M.I. Finley delves into the social construction of Homer in his 1954 (1974) The World of Odysseus. In their 1999 From Citadel to City State, Carol Thomas and Greg Conant, meanwhile follow the archeological evidence to see how Classical Greece arose from the ashes that ended Mycenaean Greece.
Homer was once thought to have been a Bronze Age Greek.His Iliad was nothing more than a poetic version of Ernie Pyle's war correspondence.Yet we now know that the Iliad and the Odyssey were written down in their current form in the mid- to late- Eighth Century BC.This means that the epics exist in two periods what modern historians would refer as the Late Bronze Age and the Archaic Age.
The first age, the Late Bronze Age, is home to the fall of Mycenae, the Fall of Troy and the arrival of the mysterious "Sea-Peoples."It is unknown from the archeology if these three events are in anyway connected.Yet we do know, according to Thomas and Conant, the power of the Mycenaean wanax (or "king") was abruptly curtailed in at the end of the thirteenth century.While final destruction of Mycenae in 1175 brought down the end of the entire society that any historical Odysseus would have been a part of.
The descendants of Mycenaean Greece eked out a survival in a pastoral and hunting existence.In the Early Dark Age (eleventh century), residents of Messenian Nichoria, survived to build a small simple society on the site of the former Pylian outpost.Thomas and Conant suggest that the evidence at Nichoria may point to a social structure similar to the Melanesian "Big Man" society.The Big Man was a community leader not by law or formal structure; instead it was by the personal qualities of the leader.When the Big Man died or lost statue, there was no electing of a new Big Man.
What we think of as the World of Odysseus, the Late Bronze Age, is left only in snippets of memories.Literacy had vanished.In order to pass down the knowledge needed by current societies, Thomas and Conant believe they created oral transmission in the form of poetry.With theological, cultural and moral values woven into the surviving stories the oral poets created what Eric Havelock, in his 1963 Preface to Plato, called "The Encyclopedia of the Dark Age."Thomas and Conant argue: "Nonliteracy and the epic encyclopedia open a number of windows looking in upon Dark Age life" (p. 48).
While what we know as the Iliad and the Odyssey are products of the late Eighth Century and they refer to events at the end of the Bronze Age; could the foundations of society represented by actually Dark Age society?Thomas and Conant, as well as Havelock believe this to be true.Finley, in the World of Odysseus, echoes this belief.Finley sees Homer not standing in two time periods, the Late Bronze Age and the early Archaic Age, but in three.Finley places the beliefs and societal structures of Homer in the Ninth and Tenth Century.
Yet the complex society found in Homer is not that of poor pastoral eleventh-century Nichoria.Odysseus' society is one of certain leadership, not the Nichorian Big Man.Agamemnon, Odysseus and Nestor are defined kings.Yet, the Linear B title "wannax" is not used by Homer; instead, it is the later Greek, "basileus."A basileus was not the great king who centralized power around his citadel in Mycenaean times.Instead he is at best, "nobleman" in charge
These noblemen were the head of a household or estate called the oikos.Each head of oikos would have been a representative in a territory's government.The basileus was the "first among equals" in a council of oikos.Finley points to the decision making in the chariot race dedicated to Patroclus.Each basileus had equal right to speak.While each can speak it is not the duty of the leader to mete justice.Finley points to the arbitration of the chariot race in the Iliad and the council called by Telamachus in Odyssey.In neither instance is there a strong central authority who has what Weber termed the "monopoly of violence."Finley points not to a united state, but a confederacy of oikoses.In both the Iliad and the Odyssey, "The defense of right was purely a private matter" (Finley, 111).
With a flatter social pyramid then that of the Mycenaean Age, Dark Age Greece was defined by this oikos.The master, his family, extended family and slaves and servants along with the buildings and fields of this household were the oikos.The archaeology Thomas and Conant find at Tenth Century Athens and Ninth Century Lefkandi supports Finley's belief.(Note that Finley's work based on sociology and cultural anthropology predates much of the archaeology.)And, anyone from outside of an oikos is of subservient status.Lower than even the slave in an oikos is the thes and the trader.
A thes is a landless peasant who must work for pay on an oikos.He is therefore outside of the structure of Dark Age Greece.When Odysseus meets Achilles in Hades (Book XI of the Odyssey), Achilles describes the thes as the lowest form of life.Achilles would rather be dead than one of these landless peasants.
The second outcast in Homer's world is the trader.According to Finley the trader seeking exchange for profit is anathema to Dark Age society.In his 1973 "Ancient Economy" he rejects any proto-capitalism found in Greece.Finley finds trading beneath the oikos in the "World of Odysseus" pointing to disguised Athena in the Odyssey excusing what can only be seen as trade.
Here the archaeology turns from Finley.Thomas and Conant look to Ninth Century Lefkandi and Eighth Century Corinth.Trading from Euboea and later Corinth brought wealth to both centers.In Eighth Century Corinth we find the expansion of pottery production for what could only be trade purposes.As wealth came to both of these regions, the various oikoses began to form more permanent connections.
The city-states - polies - of Plato, Herodotus and Leonidas are born from this increase of wealth.Thomas and Conant use Hesiod's own Askra to represent this point.Once Homer was written down and Hesiod was writing his own advice to farmers, Greece was stepping from the Dark Age into the Archaic one.Yet the accidental "nation building" from the destruction of Mycenae to the Seventh Century with its oikos, Olympian pantheon and trade and colonization were the foundations of Classical society.
Both Finley and Thomas & Conant use their distinctive expertise to open a window on the lost "Dark Age" of Greece.
Good Scholarship + Talented Author = Great Read
This relatively short work by the famed ancient historian M. I. Finely remains as influential and important today as it was when it was published over 30 years ago, no small feat in field that has seen major shifts in opinion over the same time period.Finley is one of those unique authors that can combine solid historical scholarship within an engaging framework that makes his works accessible to all, from the lay reader to a student of the field.I found the book to be both an interesting companion to The Odyssey as well as an interesting read in its own right, although I have been know to be a bit partial to Greek history.Regardless of ones interests, Finley is a very accessible author who consistently leaves me craving more.
The main goal of the book is too illuminate the obscure world of Greek prehistory using the later of the two major epic poems attributed to Homer, The Odyssey.Finley set himself no small task, for both the Iliad and The Odyssey have been regarded as representing a picture of the Greek Bronze Age to varying degrees since the founding of modern historical scholarship and indeed even before.What Finley proposes is a departure from this line of thought, namely that the epics of Homer recall the memory of the `Heroic Age of the Greeks' that is traditionally associated with the Mycenaean civilization of the later Bronze Age.Instead he suggests that the poems represent a time closer to Homers own, thought to be c. 800-750 B. C.The time period in question is known by various names but is most often called the Greek Dark Age, the period of time between the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization c. 1200 B.C. and the onset of the Archaic Age c. 750.Through an examination of the texts in combination with modern archeological findings, Finley paints a very convincing picture of what life was like in the Mycenaean and Dark Age and how The Odyssey much more closely reflects the latter.Outlining his thesis and the marked resistance it has met from a good portion of the scholarly community, Finley methodically addresses criticisms and in a good many cases turns the table on those that would rather reject his work.
Being that the poem is concerned mainly with the exploits, travels, and trials of Odysseus, mythical King of Ithaca, the social, economic, and cultural conditions exposed are necessarily not representative of the vast majority of the people living in the society.This is something we must be content with in a comparison of text and archeology of this sort, as a rule of thumb epic poems, our only written record of the time, can have nothing to do with the lives of most people, only those at the very apex of society.Although this certainly has its limitations, any light provided for this period no matter how narrow the focus shines a bit more on all the other parts.Particularly interesting are the sections dealing with ancient economy of the ruling class, primarily characterized in a reciprocal gift giving system that conferred the most respect and power to those ruler who could give wealth away to others as `presents' thereby ensuring that they owed him something when need arose.In this means wealth was accumulated in order to be dispersed in exchange for service and the acknowledgement of ones social position.An essential book for anyone trying to find the very real world that lays just beyond on the pages of western literature's greatest epics, a world that Finely brings to life again almost as much as Homer does, if not in a different sphere.
A classic on classics
M.I. (Sir Moses) Finley belonged to a generation of scholars who wrote gracefully, intelligibly and critically for a broad intelligent, curious audience instead of wasting knowledge and ideas squabbling with colleagues behind the closed door of impenetrable academicspeak.That's one reason to enjoy THE WORLD OF ODYSSEUS. Just as compelling is watching him tackle the slippery slope of locating the poet Homer and the events he sang of in "The Illiad" and "The Odyssey" in time, place and culture.He stood in line a couple of millennia behind the first to probe Homer, and others continue to study and argue the issues, but his remains a classic in the effort.
Finley addresses the sociological, economic and religious systems of the Heroic Age, and gives a close reading of the Homeric texts in doing so.He finds considerable evidence of the preliterate culture he is seeking in the poetry and provides a convincing argument as to why they can be trusted to offer verisimilitude if not fact. The world he opens up is fascinating. My copy is the second edition, to which Finley added appendices in which he sorted through archeological activity and other scholarship in the field, nodding to the difficulty but also the irresistible adventure in pushing back to a time before recorded history to find out what mattered.
Solid Scholarship
This book deduces pre-homeric mores from references to domestic and social arrangements in Homer's works. It covers Homer and his relation to classical Greece; bards and heroes as a social class; wealth and labor; households, kiniships and community; and morals and values. Heavy reference is made to the text of the Iliad and particularly the Odyssey, and there are many close observations. For example, common folk attend assemblies and may react, but do not make proposals or even speak. But there are lapses. The author seems to miss the point that the Ancients thought every departure from reason was inspired by a god. Also, he fails to note that Nestor prays for fame for himself and his wife, a point that vitiates his argument that queens who attend banquets or participate in affairs of state are overstepping their bounds. Otherwise, the book presents plausible customs and morals flowing from the texts.The nobility in every kingdom was separate from commoners, slaves, and indentured freemen.The degree of input that a king wanted from nobles was up to the king. Nobles looked down on those who traded for profit, as ever, but the author overlooks the reason--because concentration of capital threatened the nobility. He omits the most plausible reason for Laertes' self-exile after Odysseus's departure, a directive from Athena. Otherwise, this book explains Homeric customs at a high order of scholarship. Any reader will achieve a deeper understanding of the texts.
Solid scholarship
This book deduces pre-homeric mores from references to domestic and social arrangements in Homer's works. It covers Homer and his relation to classical Greece; bards and heroes as a social class; wealth and labor; households, kiniships and community; and morals and values. Heavy reference is made to the text of the Iliad and particularly the Odyssey, and there are many close observations. For example, common folk attend assemblies and may react, but do not make proposals or even speak. But there are lapses. The author seems to miss the point that the Ancients thought every departure from reason was inspired by a god. Also, he fails to note that Nestor prays for fame for himself and his wife, a point that vitiates his argument that queens who attend banquets or participate in affairs of state are overstepping their bounds. Otherwise, the book presents plausible customs and morals flowing from the texts.The nobility in every kingdom was separate from commoners, slaves, and indentured freemen.The degree of input that a king wanted from nobles was up to the king. Nobles looked down on those who traded for profit, as ever, but the author overlooks the reason--because concentration of capital threatened the nobility. He omits the most plausible reason for Laertes' self-exile after Odysseus's departure, a directive from Athena. Otherwise, this book explains Homeric customs at a high order of scholarship. Any reader will achieve a deeper understanding of the texts.
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