The Poetics of Consent: Collective Decision Making and the Iliad

Notes

* Page 233Notes * David F. Elmer introduction: from politics to poetics 1. As a useful working definition of a “collective decision,” I adopt the formulation of Tideman 2006: 6: “A process that identifies a pattern of future coordinated actions as the intended actions of the members of a collectivity, and creates corresponding intentions in enough members of the collectivity that in the ordinary course of events the pattern is realized.” We will see that the Iliad generally regards the support of all the members of the collectivity as necessary for the realization of collective action. 2. Walsh 2005: 14. Walsh (18n56) notes two other instances of “folk definition” embedded within characters’ speech in the Iliad. 3. I adopt the term “interpretive community” from Fish 1980, who uses it to indicate the way in which interpretive norms—the limits of what may constitute a “correct” interpretation—are established by the consensus of a particular community of readers. Although the issues Fish confronts are distinct from those at stake here, his emphasis on the collective determination of interpretive values is eminently relevant. In the context of my arguments, interpretation should be understood as being coextensive with reception. 4. “Le mot [c0233-01.gif] … precise souvent chez Homère une idée d’efficacité quasi juridique” (Gernet 1948: 186; reprinted in Gernet 1955, quotation on p. 16). 5. See Haubold 2000, esp. pp. 32–35; Barker 2009, ch. 1, on the “institutionalization” of dissent in the Iliad. For speakers’ appeals to themis, see Il. 2.73 (Agamemnon) and 9.33 (Diomedes), with the remarks of Barker 2009: 62–63; cf. Agamemnon’s “procedural” remark at Il. 19.79–80. 6. Here and elsewhere I make a rough equivalence between “politics” and “collective decision making.” “Politics” and “political” are to be understood in such formulations as shorthand for the arena in which matters of significance to the social group as a whole are contested. Like Hammer, who defines “politics” as “a realm in which people think about themselves, and constitute themselves, as communities” (Hammer 2002: 32), I wish to keep “politics” distinct from the institutions of the polis. The degree to which these institutions can be traced in the Homeric poems remains a matter of controversy in Homeric studies, although scholars today do generally accept that the polis has left a significant imprint on the poems: see, e.g., Scully 1990, Seaford 1994, and the references cited by Hammer 2002: 205n50. 7. Page 234Finley 1977: 80–81. Cf. Raaflaub and Wallace 2007: 28, “there is … no formal obligation to respect the people’s opinion”; Catanzaro 2008: 273, “la componente dei molti riunita in assemblea ha scarsa, se non scarsissima, autorità in materia decisionale e si limita, spesso, ad approvare o a contestare le scelte dei capi”; Barker 2009: 35n20, “the group do not even possess the power of ratifying policy.” For a survey of some alternative views, see Ruzé 1997: 14–15. 8. Cartledge 2009: 33. For Węcowski 2011: 77–78, by contrast, it is precisely in this episode that the poem reveals an awareness of collective modes of decision making. 9. Hammer 2002: 146–47. Hammer nevertheless upholds the common position that “the leaders appear free to follow or ignore whatever might be the expressed sentiment” of the people (145). A similar ambivalence characterizes the remarks of van Wees 1992: 32–33, who contends that, while “the people … have no vote or any say in the matter,” nevertheless, “decisions taken by the princes are supposed to express the will of the people.” Weber’s description of “plebiscitary democracy” can be found at Weber 1978: 266–71. 10. Cf. Green 2010: 145 on Weber’s model: “A plebiscitary leader pursues a substantive agenda that is his or her own, not that of the People, and thus possesses an extraordinary degree of independent decision-making authority.” 11. Allan and Cairns 2011 (quotation from p. 117; see p. 115 for the de iure / de facto distinction). 12. Flaig 1994; quotation from p. 31 (“Der Dichter leistet politische Reflexion in atheoretischer Form”). Others have discussed Homeric deliberation in terms of “consensus,” although Flaig’s discussion remains the most rigorous: see, e.g., Patzek 1992: 131–32 and Farenga 2006: 109–73. Both of these writers voice reservations about the extent to which the consensus they observe genuinely expresses collective sentiment (cf. Farenga 2006: 135). See also Cantarella 1979: 104–29 on the relationship between consensus and power in the constitution of authority. 13. For a more complete...