The Homeric Aristocratic Oikos: a model of socio-economical aggregation

Abstract

This article aims at analyzing some key features of the internal socio- economical organization of the aristocratic oikos of Homeric age, with a focus on the differences with the Mycenaean past. The thesis sustained is, in fact, that, during the so called Dark Ages, the socio-economic reorganization required after the fall of the former palatial system revealed an acknowledgement of the weaknesses of this system through a restructuring of the society on the basis of completely different assumptions, such as private ownership of the oikos and of the kleros. Developer and divulger of this new ideology is the basileus, and not by chance. Only a character who witnessed the decline of the former social structure may have the instruments to define the guidelines of the new one, even if - as in this case - from an opposite perspective. And only a character who, in the former system, vested a role of authority may have the necessary means, economic and managerial. Following this reorganization process with symbolic characters such as Laertes and Odysseus implies also assisting to the transformation of the basileus into aristos, the true Greek aristocrat, the landowner with his value system grounded on land.