Political thougth in Homeric epic: a reflection on the State?

Abstract

This article analyses the possibility of approaching the Homeric poems as a political reflection on the emergence of the archaic polis, understood as the first form of state in Greek antiquity. First of all, some methodological obstacles to approaching the Greek polis, in general, and the Homeric polis, in particular, under the concept of the state, are analysed. It then attempts to show the relevance of the use of the category of the state to Homeric political reality and, indeed, the poet's awareness of the need for a reflexive and problematising movement on the city-state of the archaic period. To this end, the focus is placed on some episodes of the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as on some specific passages of both poems.