Homer’s Greece
Reaching for the Bronze Age from the Iron Age
The Poet of An Iliad is nameless, coming to us without a firm biography. Likewise, Homer, the poet-author of the classic Iliad, is a mystery. Though specifics of his life are largely unknown, most scholars place him in the 8th century BC as Greece was emerging from its Dark Age, poised to explode into democracy, drama, and philosophy. The Poet is composing in the Iron Age, memorializing Bronze Age deeds.
The Bronze Age was a 2,000 year period that ended between 1200 and 1100 BC. The late Bronze Age was dominated by the palatial state of Mycenae. This civilization, the most advanced of the early Greek societies, was organized around a king who had a network of lower-tiered nobles. The king, or wanax, would control all or most of the industry, trade, religion, and decision-making in their state.
War was an important factor in the preservation of these states, with the palace controlling both weapon production and military training. This was a bronze and spear-based army; swords and other instruments were used only occasionally. The tin and copper needed to make bronze were not always in wide supply, however, which made the alloy valuable and precious. For this reason, large shields were typical, but full sets of bronze armor were less common. Achilles’ gleaming armor, then, was all the more remarkable.
This major society was ruled at the time of the war by Agamemnon, the commander of the Greek armies. But shortly after the war, Mycenaean society collapsed. The definitive reasoning for this has been lost to time, though the chief theories involve a Doric invasion or widespread rebellion of the lower classes of Mycenae. If the Trojan War did occur, the weakened state of the army due to the long conflict likely played a part in the ruler’s inability to hold the society together.
After the Mycenaean society’s collapse around 1200 BC, Greece entered into a Dark Age for nearly five centuries. Population decreased substantially and villages replaced palaces. The writing system of the Mycenaeans disappeared. Iron also supplanted bronze as the most important metal for farming, tools, and as the material of war. Iron is a purer, plentiful element, which made iron weapons and tools much more affordable and abundant, and therefore less revered than bronze.
The Iron Age encompasses this Dark Age, but also sees the re-emergence of Greek culture in the 8th century BC. At that point, urbanization began to increase rapidly around the new polis, or city-states. Most Greek societies were still beholden to a single leader, but the foundations of democracy emerged as the concept of popular governing and codes of law began to take shape. Most significantly, a new form of writing emerged, allowing for the recording of history, poetry, and eventually drama. Though Homer does not live to see the result, the foundations for a wildly influential and powerful society of governance and art are being laid all around him.
This new dawn of Greece is Homer’s era. He was singing about a lost and long-ago era at the birth of a new one, spinning legends about a prior time without knowing that his own would become legendary. In the Iliad, Homer sings of Achilles’ iron heart, invoking that dull metal to characterize him as unflinching and merciless. But in calling for his own inspiration, Homer cries out of a “heart inside me bronze.” He is composing at a time of uncertainty, in the first days of an unknowable world, looking back with nostalgia to a time of heroes and strict codes of honor.
We might know something today of wishing for bronze hearts in a time of iron.
Join us for An Iliad, onstage at Lantern Theater Company now through December 11. Visit our website for tickets and information.
