Relevance and political interference of democratic power in the archaic epic: an approach from Homeric thought

Abstract

There is a consensus among historians that the advent of Greek democracy came about through the transformation of the plebiscitary practices and space of the archaic period into a more stable and logic-legal configuration of office and law that takes place in classical Athens. These assembly dynamics constitute one of the fundamental pillars of the Homeric narrative, which has suggested that the Iliad and the Odyssey express the Greek egalitarian and proto-democratic mentality. However, it has been argued that the people have diminished political interference as they only condition it to a small extent or, at most, serve as a consultative body. This article analyses the philosophical-political approach to the problems presented in the Homeric poems in terms of a democratic conception of the exercise of sovereignty. The aim is to show the Homeric epic’s approach to and positioning of democratic power not so much from an ideological perspective but rather from a problematizing gaze. That is to say, we can see in the poems an attempt at philosophical-political reflection by the poet on the relevance, scope, limits, and tensions presented by political and social practices that can be called “democratic”.