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A Prehistoric Bureaucracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 July 2024

John Chadwick
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Extract

Homer, the first and greatest of Greek poets, depicts a society which may be loosely described as feudal. Power is in the hands of kings, who are bound to each other by ties of marriage and traditional friendship. Their nobles are men of equally good blood and high repute; the common people appear to have no function but to serve their lords and masters. The operation of the government is but sketchily indicated. The kings and princes meet in council, decisions are taken and are reported verbally by messengers. There is not the slightest hint that administration involves paper work, nor is there anything that can be called a “civil service.”

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 7 , Issue 26 , June 1959 , pp. 7 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © 1959 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

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References

1. The Decipherment of Linear B (Cambridge: At the University Press, I958).

2. Professor Blegen in a recent article ("Minoica," in Sundwall-Festschrift [Berlin, I958]) has questioned Evans' dating of the Knossos tablets to I400. He suggests that they belong to a reoccupation of the palace at a later period, roughly contemporary with the mainland palaces. If this theory proves correct, it will simplify the historical reconstruction; but it remains true that the uniformity of spelling implies a stable tradition.

3. L. R. Palmer, "A Mycenaean Calendar of Offerings," Eranos 53 (I955), pp. I-I3.

4. See my article "The Mycenaean Filing System," Bulletin of the London Institute of Classical Studies, No. 5, pp. I-5.

5. T. B. L. Webster in a recent book, From Mycenae to Homer (London, I958), has pressed the evidence to its limits; but, although his hypothesis is plausible, the tablets cannot be made to substantiate it.