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  • Basileus and Anax in Homer and Mycenaean Greek Texts

  • from Key Topics
  • Edited by Corinne Ondine Pache
  • Edited in association with Casey Dué , University of Houston, Susan Lupack , Macquarie University, Sydney, Robert Lamberton, Washington University, St Louis
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Guide to Homer
    Published online:
    22 February 2020
    Print publication:
    05 March 2020, pp 300-302

  • Summary

    Basileus and anax in Homer (gwasileus and wanax in Mycenaean Greek) are non-Indo-European power terms adopted by the predominantly Greek-speaking Mycenaean palatial culture of the late Greek Bronze Age (1450‒1200 b.c.e.) and used to signify respectively local or regional ruler and high or paramount king in the oral song-poems known as the Homeric epics and the texts written on clay tablets in the open-syllabic and peculiarly logographic script known as Linear B. Here we trace the likely root meaning of wanax when adopted from a non-Greek culture (likely the Minoan high culture of the island of Crete) and the specific semantic uses of both terms in the Homeric song-poems alongside the Indo-European power term koiranos, a term with decidedly military implications in the Homeric texts.