Phren — appearing in Homer over 300 times, almost always in its plural form phrenes — occupies a singular and contested position in the early Greek psychology reconstructed by depth-psychological and classical scholars alike. The corpus reveals no single settled account of what phrenes are, but rather a productive ambiguity: they are simultaneously quasi-anatomical entities (associated with the diaphragm, lungs, or pericardium) and fully psychological ones, functioning as the seat of thought, deliberation, emotion, and moral judgment. Sullivan traces their trajectory across epic, lyric, elegiac, and Presocratic texts, establishing phrenes as a subordinate but indispensable psychic entity — a cognitive-affective instrument the person relies upon when noos is absent or concealed. Padel, working from tragic language, refuses to resolve the literal-metaphorical tension, arguing that phrenes are characteristically receptive and passive, acted upon by grief, eros, and fear, yet capable of active initiative and imaginative denial. The key tension dividing scholars concerns agency: are phrenes a tool subordinate to the person, or an semi-autonomous inner force? Carson introduces the respiratory dimension, linking phrenes to breath and thus to perception and consciousness itself. Across these voices the term emerges as an irreducible node where soma, psyche, cognition, and passion cannot be disentangled — making it foundational for any account of Greek interiority.