Although military concepts in Homeric poetry have been studied since Alexandrian times, there has not been until now an extended study of the concept of alke, 'defensive strength,' as it unfolds intertextually within the Iliad and the Odyssey and archaic Greek poetry generally. Derek Collins uses evidence from Homeric poetry to reveal that alke, unlike other concepts of strength in archaic Greek, plays a central role in defining a warrior at the peak...