Shulamit Almog: The Origins of Law in Homer

This monograph is a worthy addition to an ongoing law and literature series by De-Gruyter, as well as an independent piece of scholarly discussion and deliberation. Shulamit Almog examines the Homeric epics, the Iliad, and the Odyssey. At first glance this seems a rather daring choice, considering the thousands of years of these epics’ dominance in western culture and imagination. Yet, surprisingly and quiet brilliantly, Almog manages to construct a fresh perspective pertaining to the epics, thus building a new layer of legal scholarship on the ages-old scholarly infrastructure.

As she notes, her book purpose is to introduce the Iliad and the Odyssey into the law and literature canon, a called for endeavor, because upon the broad canvas created by the law and literature discourse since the 1970s, the preoccupation with the Homeric epics and its connection to law and justice have remained modest, in spite of their unique cultural supremacy.

The rationale for focusing on these particular critical approaches is explained in a clear and well-written introduction.

Almog’s exploration of classical discourse is remarkable especially in her specific lexical choices and recontextualization. Although other works belonging to the legacy of ancient Greece – especially, Aeschylus’ Oresteia and others parts of ancient Greek drama – have been extensively dealt within the law and literature discourse, the Homeric epics are still located in its margins. To remedy this, Almog’s discussion focuses on the epics as literary texts “that narrate myths that have cultivated notions pertaining to the naissance of law” (4). Homer, she puts forward, brings to light a fundamental understanding of law and justice. The slim, yet rich volume, offers quite a few manifestations of this notion. In this short review, I will suffice with a few.

The first one is a deep observation exposed in the book, of the intricate relationships between the Odyssey and the Oresteia. Following Michael Bakhtin’s notion of the “great time”, Almog outlines the continuum between the Odyssey and the Oresteia, associating them both to the idea of law and the rule of law. Moreover, Almog reveals the similarity between what she calls “a crisis of revenge” that stands at the center of both the texts, and the different closure of each. The book illuminates the poetic, performative, and sociopolitical considerations in the Odyssey that paved the ground for the emergence of a generative legal narrative in the Oresteia, and suggests that the Odyssey constitutes a significant milestone on the path to the generative legal narrative. Using the perspective of Law alongside Literature (a paradigm depicting both Law and Literature as social practices in constant interaction), Almog ably analyses the Homeric epics to reveal significant landmarks on the long trail of the evolution of law in general and of Greek law in particular.

In this context, Almog also identifies the deep difference between myth and tragedy. Considering Vernant and Vidal-Naquet’s “tragic transition” (a symptom of the unresolved tension between two systems of values and ideas) she clarifies that myth provides answers without explicitly formulating questions, while tragedy uses the mythical story to formulate complex questions that remain unanswered. As Vernant and Vidal-Naquet emphasize: “… although tragedy, more than any other genre of literature, thus appears rooted in social reality, that does not mean that it is a reflection of it. It does not reflect that reality but calls it into question”.^[1] The questions are asked but no reasonable responses will be given by the tragic consciousness.

Another captivating discussion delves into the connection between the Homeric epics and law by turning the spotlight on the destructive consequences of unbridled wrath. Anger is a key concept that has always been linked to law. In effect, the ability and authority to regiment anger lies at the root of most legal systems. The subjugation of the impulse to act out of anger to procedures dictated by the law is a core fundament of the rule of law. The Homeric epics represent an appropriate and perhaps even a prerequisite prequel to the central story of regimentation and juridification of anger that assumes a more structured form in the Oresteia. The third chapter contrasts the wrath of the two major epic heroes, Achilles and Odysseus. The Iliad’s narrative posits Achilles’ wrath as a central topic already in its first line, and it subsequently becomes clear that he is serially enraged. The Iliad describes three successive waves of fury that sow increasingly devastating consequences. Odysseus’ wrath, by contrast, is not framed as a central element of the narrative, and is not a theme on which Homer elaborates. Still, a close look at Odysseus’ wrath, which ends up in a spectacle of fury, costs the lives of Ithaca’s nobility and the dozen serving women of Odysseus’ household.

In the fourth chapter, in my view a most sophisticated and captivating crescendo of the book, Almog delineates the establishment of a system of criminal justice laying in the heart of the Oresteia, yielding to the masculine interest the decisive resolution and marks a significant distance from the pre-rule of law in the time of the Odyssey. The Odyssey marks the starting point of the conflict between the sexes, while the Oresteia marks the female defeat in that struggle, one of whose primary expressions concerns the nature that the rule of law will come to assume. The final goal of the arguments developed consists of the conceptualization of the Odyssey as a unique moment on the continuum of the conflict between the sexes. In effect, the Odyssey is female driven: The Odyssey tells of queens, princesses, goddesses, and serving women, who manage to determine courses of events. The pre-judicial era of the epics, Almog puts forward, grants women some freedom of action, as long as it is discreetly exercised or disguised. The social system strikes a balance between male dominance and feminine agency: in this social and political environment focused on male will and interest, women are allowed some degree of freedom to promote their own interests, choices and desires by operating outside the default androcentric options of action. Homeric society represents what she skillfully designates as the Metis Syndrome, an inspiring term, associated with a spectrum of behaviors that represent women’s power alongside the need to conceal its manifestations from the public eye. By embedding the expression Metis Syndrome in an overarching analysis of interpretations of the female inclination to diminish skills that might be considered a threat to men, Almog clarifies some puzzling aspects of the enigmatic figure of Penelope, and adds depth to the figures of Calypso, Circe, Arete, Nausicaa, and the serving women whose voices can be heard in the epic.

The male part of this syndrome is the constant fear of women’s agency, and suspicion of women in general, leading to male attempts to silence female voices. The book demonstrates that in the later age, the age of law, as festively inaugurated in the Oresteia, blocks the already restricted spectrum of female agency reflected in the Homeric epics. The era of tragedy decides unequivocally in favor of male superiority, to the constant service of which the newly minted rule of law would be harnessed and committed.

The conclusion offers a promising area for future research and finally intensifies the continuous flow of law alongside literature, which supports the everlasting hope of bettering the law. Invaluable data is provided by an extensive bibliography, and by a richly informative appendix.

The Origins of Law in Homer is a welcome addition to Homeric as well as to legal scholarship. Its significance lies in the plethora of new novel perspectives employed to analyze this fundamental pillar of western culture.