sented in Homer and the civilisation of the πόλις. But it may now be assumed as certain, that the Homeric poems as we have them were put together on the later side of this line, and that they do not all represent the same age, or exactly the same state of society. The Iliad, or the oldest portions of it, seems to contain reminiscences of an older type of polity, in which great chiefs ruled over wide and loosely united territories, as the early kings of France or Scotland ruled over lesser chieftains whom they could only attempt to control.[1] The Odyssey, and especially those parts of it which are believed to be of the latest origin, gives us the idea of a society altered in some important features, and tending towards the development of that kind of polity which is the object of our study.
It is true, indeed, that there is little or no sign even in the Odyssey of the life of the fully formed State. The town is there, and it is frequently called πόλις; the king and the chief men seem to reside in it, and their dwellings show a comfort and affluence which mark an advanced civilisation; yet the life is essentially rural, the wealth is reckoned by flocks and herds, and we find few traces of that public interest and concentrated population which mark the true City-State. Perhaps we may {hws|pro|provisionally}}
- ↑ In the description of the shield of Achilles we do, however, see pictured something very like the life of the City-State (Il. xviii. 490 foll.); and this is by common consent allowed to be one of the oldest parts of the Iliad. On the subject of the Homeric polity, Fanta's little work, Der Staat in der Ilias und Odyssee (Innsbrück, 1882), will be found useful.
