An Economic Approach to Homer's Odyssey: Part III

Polities and Economics

The Polities in Brief

Below is a brief and simplified catalog of the major polities described in The Odyssey:

• • Pylos and Sparta: Visited by Telemachus, superficially seem normal but they seem sadder on reflection and Sparta relies on intoxication to support public order.
• • Ogygia, or Calypso: An unbearable paradise, there is no utopia.
• • Phaeacia: Relatively well-run, inward-looking, passive-aggressive, “control freak” syndrome.
• • The Lotus Eaters: Another unbearable “utopia.”
• • The Cyclopes: Anarchistic, brutish, and the community is ineffective and unable to defend itself.
• • Aeolus: A closed society, based on incest, hostile to outsiders, a more extreme and dysfunctional version of Phaeacia.
• • Laestrygonia: Giants, they throw boulders and murder, and in some ways resemble the Cyclopes. Tendencies toward anarchy are widespread, and not confined to the Cyclopes.
• • Aeaea (Circe): There is the bed of tyrannical but beautiful Circe, or life as a well-fed pig. Again, utopias are impossible and immortality would bore us.
• • Cimmeria: Dark, bleak, and unloved by God. Possibly the default setting.
• • The Underworld: Everyone is sad (and dead), yet they talk like actual humans and also tell the truth. Lesson: the living cannot escape artifice and deception.
• • Ithaca: Usually wrapped up in war and revenge-taking, chaotic and lacking in trust and lacking in clarity about sovereignty. This is another one of the default options.
• • Syria: Initially prosperous but wrecked by the arrival of avaricious merchants. Unstable.
• • Crete: A diverse society of perfect trust, within a narrative of Odysseus-in-disguise, but it has no chance of existing.

So, which are the actual options here? To pare down the possibilities, it is necessary to consider which of these polities are presented as actually existing or not. Under one reading of the book, the stress is on Odysseus as narrator. If you add up chapters six through thirteen, a major centerpiece of the book, the stranger and more exotic tales, such as those of Circe and the Cyclopes and the Underworld, are narrated by Odysseus to King Alcinous and the Phaeacians. There are a bunch of weird polities, probably unrealistic, and many of those probably were figments of the narrative imagination in the first place. In the parts of the book that are presented more directly by Homer without the intermediation of Odysseus’s tales, the creatures and the action aren’t nearly so unusual. The world of the stories within a story seems different from the story itself.

The imaginary polities may teach us lessons, but if we rule them out as actual options, we have the following as the actual real-world polities in the story: Pylos and Sparta; Ogygia, or Calypso; Phaeacia; and Ithaca.

In my reading, Pylos and Sparta, the polities visited by Telemachus, is what the world looks like when you do not have the critical faculties acquired by traveling. Pylos is the world prior to an understanding of options, as only Odysseus has seen war, anarchy, orderly kingship, and various polities based on intoxication. Sparta represents post-traumatic tragedy and intoxication as a substitute for ongoing conflict. Ogygia is the rejected and intolerable utopia. Sparta vs. Ithaca is one meaningful contrast, but most of all The Odyssey is a comparison between Phaeacia and Ithaca, so to that contrast I shall now turn.

Ithaca vs. Phaeacia

It is well-known that Homer put many parallel events into his tales of Ithaca and Phaeacia. Bruce Louden (1993, p.6) offered one of the more compelling takes:

• Much useful scholarship has focused on the parallels between Odysseus’ stay on Skheria and his arrival on Ithaca… I argue that one extended narrative pattern accounts for much of the structure and shape of the Odyssey’s plot…

• Stated most simply, the narrative pattern is as follows: Odysseus, as earlier prophesied, arrives at an island, disoriented and ignorant of his location. A divine helper appears, advising him on how to approach a powerful female figure who controls access to the next phase of his homecoming, and points out potential difficulties regarding a band of young men. His identity a secret, as approach to the female is perilous, Odysseus reaches her, discovering a figure who is initially suspicious, distant, or even hostile towards him. She imposes a test on him, whereupon Odysseus, having successfully passed the test, wins her sympathy and help, obtaining access to the next phrase of his homecoming. Their understanding is made manifest in her hospitable offer of a bath. Furthermore, Odysseus is now offered sexual union and/or marriage with the female. Conflict arises, however, between Odysseus and the band of young men. The young men abuse Odysseus in various ways and violate a divine interdiction. The leader of each band has the parallel name of Eury-. Their consequent death, earlier prophesied, is brought about by a divine avenger. A divine consultation limits the extent of the death and destruction.

There is an obvious question of how we are to compare Phaeacia and Ithaca. Under one view, Ithaca is plagued by recurrent internecine warfare, held only at bay by the intervention of the gods. Phaeacia seems to have reached a more stable solution, even though that polity also is rooted in violence in its deeper history, as discussed further above. Once Odysseus leaves, it seems King Alcinous will continue to reign, even if the society is more passive-aggressively dysfunctional and also more isolated than it lets on at first. The Odyssey could then be a critique of the particular kind of heroism exemplified by Odysseus, his men, and the general Achaean attack on the Trojans. It is thus possible to see both The Odyssey and The Iliad as anti-war books of a sort, though they may also see war as inevitable. The comparison embedded in The Odyssey would then be something like, “live out what it means to be human, experience everything, and be wracked by war” (Odysseus and Ithaca) or “go neurotic, be uninteresting, and opt for some measure of highly imperfect but ultimately workable stability” (Alcinous and the Phaeacians).

We also should ask how real the alternative of Phaeacia is. The polities in The Odyssey are characterized by varying degrees of imaginariness. Circe and the Cyclopes and the Sirens would be among the imaginary polities, existing only within tales told by Odysseus. Ithaca is what really exists, Pylos and Sparta, too. So how about the land of the Phaeacians? For Helène Whittaker (1999, p.144) it “… is to be interpreted as an intermediate area, a borderland between the real world and the fairy tale world.” Whittaker describes Scheria [the island of Phaeacia] as the “last temptation” which Odysseus must overcome before he can return to the real world, for him Ithaca. Unlike the other fantasy worlds, however, Scherie is not built on implausible principles or obvious absurdities. Nonetheless Scheria is described as located very far away, at the extremes of the earth, and the Phaeacians are described as having no contact with other peoples. Those are common features of other unreal, fairy tale worlds. Furthermore, the journey from Scheria back to Ithaca is quite mysterious, almost as if Odysseus is waking from a dream. Supposedly he falls asleep and a Phaeacian boat whisks him back home, even though just earlier he had been very far away. The Phaeacians also have a common origin with the Cyclopes, namely through Poseidon (Aronen 2002). Something about that whole tale does not add up (Whittaker 1999, pp.144-145), and arguably the reader is supposed to doubt just how real the Phaeacians are.

At the same time, many features of Phaeacia are quite normal. There is a king and palace and the people who live there are mortal. They have a politics, city walls, a harbor and temples to the gods, and they are both sailors and farmers. It is not hard to mistake Phaeacia for a real polity, whether or not it is.

Under this interpretation, The Odyssey is asking whether anything better than Ithaca (or, implicitly, the pillaged Troy) is possible. The answer isn’t “no” for sure, because it is difficult to argue that the Phaeacians are a phony tale for certain. Homer is seeding doubt whether there is really an alternative to perpetual warfare, stopped only intermittently by the intervention of the gods. This is a relatively pessimistic reading of The Odyssey.

Power and the Narrative Discontents in Homer

There is yet another reading of Homer’s Odyssey, a take far from the central image of the book in western popular culture. Contemporary readers tend to stress the journey of Odysseus, his return home, the leaving of Penelope, the battle against the suitors, and the exotic adventures of Odysseus along the way. But so much of the book is actually the conversation of Odysseus with King Alcinous, with other elite Phaeacians listening in. This conversation is in turn bracketed by an initial tale of the loss of Odysseus, and his later return and revenge on the suitors. King Alcinous, in turn, is secure and prosperous throughout the narration.

Perhaps we should read the tale in its most literal terms, namely what it is like when a heroic man—broke, exiled, and down on his luck—has a chance to talk with a successful King? Odysseus does not seem to be the cognitive inferior of King Alcinous, but he has none of the accoutrements of power or prosperity. How then should such a conversation proceed? Odysseus has to use all of his ingenuity and narrative ability to hold the interest of the King, and he succeeds. The juxtaposition is thus one of art contrasted with power, or in economic terms art as a substitute for power and comfort. You can think of much of The Odyssey as, in its simplest form, a story about the best way to talk to a king.2

When the King himself is called upon to speak, he is in fact remarkably uninteresting. For instance, when Odysseus is telling his spellbinding tale of his trip to the Underworld, the Phaeacian veteran Echenus calls upon Alcinous to speak [11: 347]. Alcinous has little to say beyond platitudes, and he concludes by noting and reaffirming his power: “You men will all help him, but I will help the most, since I hold power here.” [11: 352-355].

One political model of The Odyssey is thus the contrast between the curiosity-seeker and storyteller and the successful King. Social norms typically would hold the King to be of higher status and importance, and Homer certainly does recognize the gains from political stability. Still, Alcinous, while effective in his own community, simply is not that sympathetic or interesting a figure. There is much more to life than political rule, but Alcinous cannot channel or reflect those deeper and more varied sides of life.

Nonetheless, Homer does not come out in favor of the curiosity-seeking narrator over the life of the King. The final books of The Odyssey are all about Odysseus seeking to reestablish himself as “king” in his home, although that is a modest kingship compared to that of the kingdom of Alcinous. So even Odysseus, the greatest of narrators in the story, prefers a bit of modest rule and power to the storytelling art, at least temporarily. But again, as discussed above, once Odysseus re-establishes himself in Ithaca, he immediately starts discussing the possibility that he will have to leave again. As to whether men prefer power to storytelling, The Odyssey does not serve up a simple answer but rather recognizes the power of each and the inability of some people to be satisfied with either for very long. Homer of course is himself a storyteller, but he sees that the storytelling of Odysseus to King Alcinous, is ultimately in the service of their attainment or reattainment of power, as was the case of Odysseus returning to Ithaca. That said, the power of curiosity and further storytelling reasserts itself at the end.

Under this reading, there is a new way of fitting together the differences between The Iliad and The Odyssey. Both are about power and political leadership, and how much men desire that power. Both are about the contrast between power and narration, and finally both suggest unsentimental conclusions about what really matters. The Odyssey, however, innovates by showing an alternative way of life, that of Odysseus, where intransitivity reigns, variety-seeking is supreme, and power does not have the final say. In The Iliad, power is the final word from start to finish.

As Robin Osborne pointed out (2004, p.213): “The provisional nature of authority is a fundamental feature of both Homeric poems.” But the all-important roles for power and conflict shine through in both. In short, if you approach Homer as an economist, even in The Odyssey your attention ends up being directed back to war.

References

Ahrensdorf, Peter J. Homer on the Gods & Human Virtue: Creating the Foundations of Classical Civilization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Alvis, John. Divine Purpose and Heroic Response in Homer and Virgil: The Political Plan of Zeus. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1995.

Aronen, Jaakko. “Genealogy as a Form of Mythic Discourse. The Case of the Phaeacians.” 2002, 89-110.

Bresson, Alain. The Making of the Ancient Greek Economy: Institutions, Markets, and Growth in the City-States.

Cowen, Tyler. “Is a Novel a Model?” In The Street Porter and the Philosopher: Conversations on Analytical Egalitarianism, edited by Sandra Peart and David M. Levy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2008, 319-337.

Dobbs, Darrell. “Reckless Rationalism and Heroic Reverence in Homer’s Odyssey.” American Political Science Review, June 1987, 81, 2, 491-508.

Dodds, E.R. The Greeks and the Irrational. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971.

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Kearns, Emily. “The Gods in the Homeric Epics.” In The Cambridge Companion to Homer, edited by Robert Fowler. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, 59-73.

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Osborne, Robin. “Homer’s Society.” In The Cambridge Companion to Homer, edited by Robert Fowler. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, 206-219.

Raaflaub, Kurt A. “Poets, lawgivers, and the beginnings of political reflection in Archaic Greece.” In The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought, edited by Christopher Rowe and Malcolm Schofield. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp.23-59.

Redfield, James M. “The Economic Man.” In Oxford Readings in Classical Studies: Homer’s Odyssey, edited by Lillian E. Doherty. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.265-287.

Rinella, Michael A. Pharmakon: Plato, Drug Culture, and Identity in Ancient Athens. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010.

Rose, Gilbert P. “The Unfriendly Phaeacians.” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Society, 1969, 100, 387-406.

Schmiel, Robert. “Telemachus in Sparta.” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association.” 1972, 103, 463-472.

Scully, Stephen. Homer and the Sacred City. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1990.

Seaford, Richard. Money and the Early Greek Mind: Homer, Philosophy, Tragedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

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Footnotes

[1] Available at the Online Library of Liberty: The Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer, translated by Thomas Hobbes.

Available for purchase: The Odyssey, by Homer, translated by Robert Fagles at Amazon.com.

[2] Finally, consider the deployment of narrative in Phaecia. The main tale told is a poet Demodocus singing of Aphrodite’s love for Ares, and how Ares had adultery with her, which “shamed the bed of Lord Hephaestus” [8: 265-269]. Nonetheless, the magic chains of Hephaestus trap them and hold them tight. That sounds like a horrible fate, but Hermes suggests he would be willing to be bound by chains three times as strong to have the same chance to sleep with Aphrodite. Poseidon, however, intervenes and asks Hephaestus to release Ares, which eventually he does. Ares and Aphrodite separate, and the story appears to end on a happy note. What is the meaning of this interlude? Could it be that the Phaeacians envy those who achieve something they really desire—sleeping with Aphrodite?—even if it means some time of servitude? Is it the Phaeacians longing for something they do not have, namely true passion?