Political Reciprocity in Dark Age Greece: Odysseus and his Hetairoi

Abstract

Abstract The rule of reciprocity, that one gives of one’s own accord, with the expectation that a suitable return will follow, was a powerful regulator of social behaviour at every stage of Greece’s history. The Homeric epics provide our earliest observation of its operation. In I lomer’s ‘world’, reciprocity is a very strong cultural value, manifested in a myriad of ways, both friendly and hostile. In this chapter I explore what may properly be called ‘political reciprocity’ in Homeric society, that is to say, the nature of the relationship between the leaders and the people.