Abstract
The korete of the Linear B documents was, according to Furumark and Ventris-Chadwick, "Dorfschulze" or "mayor" and the porokorete was his subordinate official. This interpretation was rejected by Ruiperez, who takes the korete for a military official, partly on the linguistic ground that the term korete was derived from the Indo-European koros and was synonymous with κοιρανοζ in Homer. Although it is taken for granted by some scholars that the korete was a military official, it is worth while reexamining the nature of the documents and the contexts in which the korete and the porokorete occur. In Ruiperez's view, kurumeno, who was the leader of a regiment (oka) in An 654, 1, and korete of iterewa in Sn 64, 5, is decisive evidence in support of his theory. Kurumeno, however, was at the same time a "moropa" (Sn 64, 5), so we do not know exactly by what qualification he was leader of an oka. Furthermore, the fact that neither korete nor porokorete occurs in the so-called "military tablets" gives rise to misgivings as to his theory. So far as we can judge from the documents, the korete and the porokorete had nothing to do with military activities, being local officials responsible for tributes. In the documents we find the korete and the porokorete as different from the basileis whose names are known, simply by their title and place of appointment. Another significant fact about korete is that at sixteen places of the Pylian kingdom and at one place in Creta, each korete had a porokorete as his subordinate. The present writer is inclined to take korete for a local official appointed by the central government, and who was generally basileus (most probably a local chief) in his "village".
