Quote Originally Posted by Brother Oni View Post
Please excuse me if I'm misunderstanding something as I'm not very familiar with Greek culture and legends of the time, but from warty goblin (another infrequent poster on this thread), I was under the impression that in Ancient times, great emphasis was put on the earning of kleos, that is the earning of glory through great deeds.

Since spoils of war is one of the direct measures of your great deeds, earning stuff from raiding or killing important enemy officers would imply great military valour. In the Illiad, when King Agamemnon takes Briseis away from Achilles, he's directly taking away Achilles' kleos, resulting in Achilles' first temper tantrum.
That’s true for the heroic ages , the time of Homer and the stories of demi-gods. By the time of the city, the classical periode, the individual glory was less important.

I’m not home so i use my memories here and some further readings may complete the picture. But the emphasis on thecollective of the city, the line of battle where the warriors stand together was greater. The morality of the fight was about togetherness, and i think i saw somewhere some fighter chastised because he had breaked the frontline. (I may be wrong on this last one). The Greeks fight together unlike the barbarians.

This tie also with the classical ideology of a state of (very roughly) equals citizen. Most of the weapons were dedicated in the name of a city. There was no use of a specific weapon to remember a specific warrior as long as the glory of the city was celebrated.

Contrast for example with the emphasis on individual valor that seem apparent in the grave were swords and other pieces of equipement were found.

Again i have to read a few things but i remember somebody talking about the balancing of the collective needs with the individual values of the aristocratic families of the ruling classes.
I hope i responded to the question but maybe a bit roughly i’m affraid.