On The Structure of Greek Tribal Society: An Essay

by Hugh E. Seebohm

The Athenians always boasted their Ionian descent, and may well have inherited their habits with the traditions of their origin.

But many were probably of wider parentage.

But the customs reviewed in the foregoing [pg 142] pages seem to have a wider parentage than can be attributed to the Pelasgians alone. Spartan customs at any rate cannot thus be accounted for.

Comparison with the history of the Jews.

In the course of argument reference has often been made to the Jewish records in the Books of the Old Testament, and indeed a remarkable parallel is presented in the history of the two peoples. Both peoples apparently reached their greatest period about the same time. The reign of Solomon with its gold and costly workmanship must have resembled that of the Mycenean kings in more than similarity of date, and outward splendour. Taking Homer again as the courtly chronicler of the Achaian age of gold, the Books of the Kings of both peoples are curiously conscious of their former tribal conditions, through which they easily trace back to the very fountain-head of their race.

Reaction in times of distress to earlier tribal habits by the Jews, and perhaps by the Achaians.

In the period of the decay of the Jewish people under the stress of invasion by foreign kings, strenuous efforts were made by their prophet leaders to purge them from the alien blood and alien influences contracted in the careless days of their prosperity. Their aim was to restore once more those strict tribal habits which had served them so well at the time of their own victorious invasion, and which still lay dormant in their constitution. In similar wise, the period of Achaian prosperity seems to have been followed by a rise into prominence at any rate, if not an actual resuscitation, of old tribal customs.

These tribal habits probably only dormant throughout and common to all Greeks,

The actual traces of tribal institutions in Homer need not be underrated. There is much that is of a tribal character in the Homeric chieftain in his relations [pg 143] to his tribesmen and to their gods. Survivals of tribal custom may also be seen in the reverence for the guest, and the sacredness of the bond of hospitality lasting as it did for generations; and in the blood-feud with its deadly consequences, especially when occurring within the tribe or kindred. Indeed if only the Pentateuch of the Achaians could be found in the ruins of Mycenae and added to the Homeric Book of the Kings, would it not then probably be evident that there was much more of a tribal nature in the organisation of the kindreds of the Achaians and surviving throughout the whole period of their splendour than the aristocratic poets of the Homeric schools allowed themselves to record?

if not practically even to all tribal systems.