To translate Iliadic peitho/mai ‘obey’ and transmit the picture of Homeric society based on obedience and command, is a diehard tradition of Homeric scholarship with no warranty in the text and, furthermore, irreconcilable with leading socio-anthropological studies of the recent decades. The misconception is aggravated to the extent that the poetic purpose of the Homeric Iliad, and the heroic Akhillean rage, exactly is to fight the tyrannical tendencies of blind obedience and absolute command with which Agamemnon threatens to destroy the core of heroic warrior aristocracy: trust among free men of honour.