Hoplites and Homer: Warfare, hero cult, and the ideology of the polis

Abstract

This chapter argues that the Iliad was in fact the product of a polis-based society, and that its subject-matter – heroes and warfare – had a clear message for all those who lived in the polis. The cost of the technology meant that participation in fighting was restricted within the community, as one recent author argues: A hoplite had to provide himself with a very expensive bronze panoply, which probably required a considerable outlay. The implication of the arguments of Detienne and de Polignac, with their stress on the community defining and defending its territory through warfare, is that hoplite phalanx was a basic feature of the polis from the beginning. It follows that hoplite warfare only makes sense in the context of the polis. Processions appear in scenes on geometric pottery, and these have been linked to hero cult, or at least to cult of the dead. Other activities that characterize Homer’s basileis are also found in hero cult.