The very geography is not that of the historical Hellenic
period. The names that are familiar to us as those of the chief
Greek cities and states are of comparatively minor importance in
the Homeric world; Athens is mentioned, but not with any prominence;
Corinth is merely a dependency of its neighbour Mycenae; Sparta
only ranks along with other towns of Laconia; Delphi and Olympia
have not yet assumed anything like the place which they afterwards
occupy as religious centres during the historic period. The chief
cities of Hellas are Mycenae, Tiryns, and Orchomenos. Crete, although
its chiefs, Idomeneus and Meriones, are only of secondary rank among
the heroes of the Iliad, is obviously one of the most important
of Grecian lands. It sends eighty ships to the Achaean fleet at
Troy, it is described both in the Iliad and the Odyssey as being
very populous (a hundred cities, Iliad II.; ninety cities, Odyssey
XIX.), and to its capital, Knossos, alone among Greek cities does
Homer apply the epithet 'great.' All which offers a striking contrast
to the comparative insignificance of the towns of the Argolid in
later Greek history, and to the uninfluential part played by Crete.
The centres of power, then, in the Homeric story are widely different
from those of the historic period. The same divergence from later
realities is manifest when we come to look at the social organization
contemplated in the Iliad and the Odyssey.
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