A discussion of Homer examined in the light of evolutionary psychology. Author Jonathan Gottschall’s basic contention is that the extreme violence in Homer – generalized to the Homeric world - can be explained by conflict over reproductive resources, specifically women of reproductive age, and that this further explains Homeric philosophy – how the characters in the poems behave and react.

Gottschall begins with an exploration of what and when “the Homeric world” was. I’m out of my depth here, not being a Classical scholar; thus I have to take his word for it. Models for Homeric society examined by Gottschall are:

* ”Mosaic” or “mélange”; the poems were developed over a considerable time period by multiple authors and thus don’t convey any useful information about Greek history;
* Mycenaean; the poems reflect the Mycenaean era (ca. 1200 BCE; Late Bronze Age);
* Late Dark Age; ca. 1000 BCE; Iron Age (this is Gottschall’s contention).

Gottschall cautioned that translators have been influenced by the Mycenaean theory, and thus use words like “king” and “city” that carry connotations that he thinks are inappropriate. In his view, the “cities” mentioned are actually barely villages, with a population at most in the 1-2000 range; the “kings” are tribal chieftains at best. As evidence, he cites examples: Nausicaä, supposedly a “princess”, drives a cart to the river to do laundry; Odysseus’ “palace” has a manure heap by the front door and a dirt floor; Odysseus knows how to plow and make hay. As mentioned, I’m out of my depth and will have to do some more reading; I do note that Troy, at least, is a substantial “city”, with walls that various characters can stand on to gaze at the besieging Greeks. It’s interesting that there’s apparently no knowledge of siege technology in the poems: no stone-throwing engines, no siege towers, no mining. There are Bronze Age depictions of siege towers in Egypt and Assyria but the idea apparently never made it Greece; as late as the Peloponnesian War, six centuries after Gottschall’s date for Homer, the only way to take a walled city was by starvation or traitors inside.

Given, then, Gottschall’s claim that Homer is describing essentially tribal societies, his analogies are people like the New Guinea highlanders and the Yanomamö and he draws on work by Steven Pinker and Napoleon Chagnon to support his thesis that Homeric warfare was either directly or indirectly over women. Directly, of course, the whole reason for the Trojan War is the abduction of Helen and the particular part of the war narrated in the Iliad is Achilles’ anger over not getting the woman he wants as booty; indirectly there are plenty of other accounts in Homer of men fighting over other things – insults, victory in contests, etc. – but Gottschall argues that these results from the need to maintain status as a warrior in order to keep others from taking your women away.

A necessary corollary of Gottschall’s case is that there must have been a shortage of women in Homeric times; otherwise there would be no selection pressure to get them; he notes that societies with an excess of males over females tend to be more violent). He’s a little more tentative here and concedes that there are plausible counterarguments. Reasons cited for excess female mortality (which is consistently abbreviated EFM in the text) are female infanticide and female “devaluation” (because female children are “worth less” than male children, they get weaned earlier and are more likely to suffer malnutrition). (Interestingly he doesn’t mention death in childbirth). Gottschall admits there’s no convincing evidence for either of these; female infanticide isn’t mentioned in Homer (the only child exposed at birth is Hephaestus, the crippled male child of Zeus and Hera). There’s some tentative archaeological evidence – female child burials are rarer than male child burials in the time period Gottschall is discussing (which supports his idea of female infanticide, since an exposed girl would not be formally buried); however, there are a number of other plausible explanations. Girls’ relative poor value related to sons is more established; a son stays with the family and will probably bring a dowry when he marries (or slave women when he raids); a daughter will be sent away, accompanied by a dowry and thus will diminish a family’s resources.

A related factor is scarcity of available women, as opposed to scarcity of actual numbers; here Gottschall is on firmer ground. There are numerous references in the poems to the “chiefs” monopolizing the supply of women by taking numerous slaves and concubines; after all, Achilles loss of a slave concubine to Agamemnon is what the Iliad is all about. Similarly, when various Trojans talk about the consequences of defeat, they almost always mention the capture and enslavement of their women.

Thus the fatalistic philosophy of Homeric characters is explained (according to Gottschall) by evolutionary pressure. There will always be war, even though everybody hates it, because that is the only way young men can obtain women and reproduce (Misunderstanding the direction of causality here is a common problem with critics of evolutionary psychology; it’s not that men somehow are forced by their genes to fight, it’s that men who don’t fight don’t have descendants who share some of their genes). Gottschall quotes some hauntingly similar observations by Yanomamo and New Guineans; they admit that war is terrible but note it’s always over women, and if they didn’t raid other tribes and take their women, the others would raid them and take theirs.

This book is interesting in comparison to another recently reviewed one; philosopher John Dupré’s Darwin’s Legacy. Dupré and Gottschall are living on different planets as far as evolutionary psychology is concerned; Dupré, not bothering to disguise contempt, dismisses it as “pseudoscience” while for Gottschall it’s such a given that he’s bemused that anybody would dispute. I side with Gottschall, of course, but note (as he does) that it’s often very difficult to rigorously demonstrate a particular evolutionary psychology argument.

I would have appreciated a somewhat longer introduction to Homeric scholarship; the book seems addressed to people familiar with Homer but unfamiliar with evolutionary psychology, rather than the other way around. No illustrations other than one table; extensive endnotes and bibliography. ( )