ABSTRACT
The society of the second half of the seventh century BCE (to a lesser degree that of earlier generations) forms the background to the epic fictions of the Iliad and the Odyssey. When the epics became formative for Greek thinking, many of their female characters became classics. They come from elite families and display aristocratic perspectives, but for historical reasons we must be cautious about employing terms like “king/queen” and “royal.” The roles women play are more substantial in the Odyssey than in the Iliad. The Homeric epics depict elite women in different stages of their lives, though literary texts are substantially constructed.
