Paradigmi politici nell'epica omerica

The book is devoted to analyze the value of the Homeric encyclopedia from the perspective of the political thought. During the Dark Age the Hellenic culture was an oral culture. So information had to be stored through a not written medium; this medium was the oral epic poetry. In the Iliad and Odyssey we can find the roots of the Western political thought. Particularly these poems contain two ideas that will deeply influenced the following theories about politics. The first one is related to the idea of kingship: the monocratic - and not monarchical - power is the basis of the political organization. The second one concerns the existence, although in an embryonic state, of the elements of the lógos tripolitikós that, only several centuries later, Herodotus will systematize in his historical work. I analyze these topics starting from a textual analysis that aims at highlighting both the kingship's lexicon and the position and the reciprocal relations of the three components of the society - the king, the áristoi, and the mass - in the political context.