Title: Politics in Early Greece in the Odyssey

Abstract: Homer’s Odyssey, one of the earliest surviving epic poems of ancient Greece, depicts the social and political landscape of Ithaca in vivid detail. Many scholars view Ithaca as a monarchical society with established kingship and statehood. According to the epic materials, the assertion that the state and kingship were fully present in Ithacan society is debatable. In Ithaca, kingship was still in its infancy, political authority had not been established, and the public power system was primitive. Ithaca had neither established a monarchical society nor reached the early statehood, but at most arrived at the transitional stage from tribal society to the early state.

Keywords: Odyssey, Ithaca, early Greece, tribal society, early state

Author: Xiaoyu Zhang, Ph.D. Candidate, Foreign Studies College, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, Hunan, China.

DOI: 10.19967/j.cnki.flc.2024.04.009