The Ongoing Neikos: Thersites, Odysseus, and Achilleus

Marks, J.

American Journal of Philology, Volume 126, Number 1 (Whole

Number 501), Spring 2005, pp. 1-31 (Article)

Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: 10.1353/ajp.2005.0021

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 THE ONGOING NEIKOS 1

AMERICAN
JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY

THE ONGOING NEIKOS:

THERSITES, ODYSSEUS, AND ACHILLEUS

J. MARKS

Abstract. Comparison of the Iliadic Thersites with his character in non-Homeric
traditions, the iambic personas Archilochos and Hipponax, the disguised Odysseus
in the Odyssey, Karna in the Maha\bha\rata, and with sociological models suggests
that his ongoing neikos (“conflict”) with Odysseus and Achilleus (neikeieske,
Iliad 2.221) is constructed as one between social equals, and so can be described
in terms of elite competition, in contrast with the common interpretation of the
scene as class conflict. The elite competition model offers fresh perspectives on
class relations in Homeric society and can help to explicate the opposition
between the heroics of Odysseus and of Achilleus and help to delineate the
thematics of the fragmentary Aithiopis.

I. THE PROBLEM: CLASS CONFLICT OR

ELITE COMPETITION?

I NTERPRETATION OF THE MUCH - DISCUSSED CONFLICT between

Odysseus and Thersites in the Iliad (2.211–77) is complicated by the fact
that the text does not specify whether Odysseus confronts in Thersites a
fellow military commander, basileus, or rather a common soldier, one of
the ple\thus. Modern literary critics and historians tend to favor the latter
interpretation. Its appeal is clear, for if Thersites’ ranking is qualitatively
lower than that of Odysseus, the scene can be analyzed as an example of
class conflict. And indeed, approached in these terms, the Iliadic Thersites
plays a key role in arguments on topics as diverse as the origins of the

American Journal of Philology 126 (2005) 1–31 © 2005 by The Johns Hopkins University Press
2 J. MARKS

polis and of democracy, the development of Greek rhetoric, and the

“true” face of battle as revealed in literature.1
There are, however, problems with the application of the class-
conflict model to the Iliadic Thersites scene.2 In the first place, nowhere
else in the Iliad does a member of the ple\thus speak in his own voice.
Indeed, there are no other examples of overt class conflict in the poem or
elsewhere in the corpus of early Greek epic. The absence of parallels
does not prove that Iliadic tradition could not include a named spokes-
man from and for the ple\thus. It does foster the expectation that, if there
is to be one programmatic representation of conflict between social
classes in the Iliad, the relative status of the parties to the conflict would
be made explicit.
This consideration leads to a further problem with the class-conflict
model: Thersites is ill suited to the role of vox populi because he is a
highly ranked character in non-Homeric epic and myth. Specifically, he
belongs in some accounts to a family whose more illustrious members
include Diomedes and Meleagros; and he is elsewhere ranked among the
heroes who take part in the Kalydonian boar hunt.3 With this textual
evidence we may compare representations of Thersites on fourth-century
Apulian vases as an attractive youth or older man, without any of the

1
The interpretation of Thersites as a character of low ranking goes back at least to
Plato’s Sokrates, who contrasts him as a “private man,” idio\te\s, with “kings and dynasts,”
basileas kai dunastas (Gorgias 525e); similarly Xenophon Commentarii 1.2.58–60. The domi-
nance of the class-conflict approach to Thersites among moderns is reflected, e.g., in its adoption
in two standard Anglophone textbooks on pre-classical Greek history, Oswyn Murray’s
Early Greece (Cambridge: Harvard, 2d ed. 1993, 57) and Robin Osborne’s Greece in the
Making (London: Routledge 1996, 294). Thersites and the polis: Andreyev 1991, 341–42;
democracy: Ste. Croix 1981, 413; Engels 1990, 84–85; rhetoric: Ahl 1984, 174–75; battle: Tritle
2000, 12–15 (equating Thersites with “grunts” in Vietnam). Advocates of the minority opin-
ion, that Thersites is highly ranked, include Feldman 1947; Kirk 1985, 138–39, ad Iliad 2.212;
M. Edwards 1987, 165–66; Beidelman 1989, 230; cf. Lowenstam 1993, 79, and n. 29 below.
2
Thersites’ claim to have taken prisoners, and the fact that he is heard out in the
agora, while suggestive, are not decisive indicators of high rank (as is argued by Kirk 1985,
138–39), for nowhere else in ancient Greek epic is a character denied the opportunity to
engage in these activities because of low ranking.
3
For Thersites’ place in the Aitolian royal house, see bT scholia to Iliad 2.212,
Apollodoros Bibliotheke 1.7.7, 1.8.4–5, and Pausanias 2.25.2 with Iliad 14.114–21; cf. Kullmann
1960, 148; Lincoln 1994, 32–34. For his role in the Kalydonian boar hunt, see Pherekydes
FGrH 3 F 123; Usener 1965 [1912/13], 239–43; Feldman 1947. The social status of those who
face the boar is explicit in Apollodoros (1.8.2), where they are referred to as “the best of
Hellas” (tous aristous ek te\s Hellados).
 THE ONGOING NEIKOS 3

negative physical traits attributed to him in the Iliad.4 Thersites’ elevated

social status in these contexts is significant regardless of their antiquity
relative to that of the Iliad. If, on the one hand, the non-Homeric mate-
rial is derivative of the Iliad, it is difficult to see why, given Thersites’
behavior there and the poem’s authority, he would be elevated to the
rank of basileus. It is on the other hand equally difficult to see why the
Iliad would appropriate a highly ranked Thersites to serve as the only
named voice of the ple\thus, since audiences familiar with his non-Homeric
identity could miss the class status differential with Odysseus and there-
fore the ostensible point of the scene.
Proponents of the class-conflict model answer such objections with
the claim that Thersites’ low social ranking is made clear through the
negative introduction of him by the Homeric narrator:5

Yers¤thw dÉ ¶ti moËnow émetroepØw §kol≈ia,

˘w ¶pea fres‹n ∏isin êkosmã te pollã te e‡dh,
mãc, étår oÈ katå kÒsmon, §riz°menai basileËsin,
215 éllÉ ˜ t¤ ofl e‡saito gelo¤ion ÉArge¤oisin
¶mmenai. a‡sxistow d¢ énØr ÍpÚ ÖIlion ∑lyen:
folkÚw ¶hn, xvlÚw dÉ ßteron pÒda, t∆ d° ofl  mv
kurt≈, §p‹ st∞yow sunokvxÒte: aÈtår Ïperyen
fojÚw ¶hn kefalÆn, cednØ dÉ §penÆnoye lãxnh.
¶xyistow dÉ ÉAxil∞Û mãlistÉ ∑n ±dÉ ÉOdus∞Û:
t∆ går neike¤eske.
But Thersites alone, unmeasured in his speech, still kept
squawking;
he knew in his wits words many and disorderly
so as to make strife with basileis, idly and not according to order,
215 but whatever seemed to him to be a source of laughter to the
Argives.
And he was the worst man who came to Ilion,
bowlegged, and lame in one foot; his shoulders were
rounded, hunched together over his chest. And above
his head was pointy, and sparse the stubble on it.
And most hateful was he to Achilleus most of all, and to
Odysseus;
for with these two he kept having a conflict [neikos].
Iliad 2.212–21

4
The vases in question are Taranto 52230 (RV Ap. 39, 25) and Boston 03.804 (RV
Ap. 472, 75). See also below n. 41 on a fresco described by Pausanias.
5
Thus for instance Andreyev 1991, 341; Thalmann 1988, 15. The text is that of M.
West (Homeri Ilias volumen prius. Stuttgart: Teubner. 1998).
4 J. MARKS

Thersites is physically repulsive and emphatically so: his is the second

longest physical description in the Homeric epics.6 Moreover, he alone of
speaking characters in the Iliad is provided with neither homeland nor
patronymic, in contrast with such heroes as Achilleus and Odysseus, for
whom physical beauty and distinguished ancestry are emblems of heroic
identity.7 To be sure, the less-than-heroic physical characteristics of the
Trojan Dolon, the queen of the Laistrygones, and Odysseus’ herald Eury-
bates demonstrate that lack of beauty does not necessarily preclude high
ranking in Homeric epic.8 All the same, no other Homeric character is
denounced in these terms or at such length as is Thersites in the Iliad; nor
is any other named speaking character left unconnected to family and
homeland.
These facts are of supreme importance to the class-conflict inter-
pretation. Thersites’ ugliness and near anonymity both distinguish him
from the basileus class and establish his Homeric identity as the voice of
the ple\thus. As the old pun goes, “The peasants are revolting.” Further,
the emphasis on Thersites’ negative attributes is meant not so much to
undermine the purport of his speech (225–42), which echoes complaints
already made by Achilleus, as to decry the fact that one of the ple\thus
dares to speak it.9 The equation of ugliness with low social rank is thus

6
As M. Edwards 1987, 82, observes, the only longer Homeric description is that of
Odysseus after he has been rendered ugly by Athene (Odyssey 13.430–38, on which pas-
sage see below).
7
The closest parallel to Thersites’ description is that of Iros, the beggar whom
Odysseus bests in a fight at the beginning of Odyssey 18. Iros is not called “Ithakan” but
rather a “public beggar in the city of Ithake\” (pto\chos pande\mios hos kata astu / pto\cheuesk’
Ithake\s, 18.1–2), and he receives no patronymic, though his mother is mentioned (but not
named). Cf. Nagy 1979, 231. Neither homeland nor patronymic is provided for the Adrestos
who unsuccessfully begs Menelaos for his life in Iliad 6, but his heroic identity can be
deduced from the context of the scene together with an entry from the Trojan Catalog
(Iliad 6.30–50 with 2.828–34).
8
Dolon: Iliad 10.316; Eurybates: Odyssey 19.246; see Rose 1988, 17–18; queen of
Laistrygones: Odyssey 10.113. Dolon’s relatively high social status can be inferred for
instance from his position as herald; see van Wees 1992, 333–34, n. 61. Positive correlation
between physical beauty and social status is of course the norm; cf. Thalmann 1988, 15. This
correlation can be mapped onto a larger complex of themes; as Redfield 1994, 161, ob-
serves, in Homeric epic, “social propriety, technical serviceability, and physical appearance
are described in the same language.”
9
E.g., Andreyev 1991, 341 (“the poet, obviously sympathizing with the noblemen”);
Ste. Croix 1981, 413 (“anti-democratic propaganda”); Morris 2000, 174–76 (“elite bias”).
On the similarities between Achilleus’ and Thersites’ characterizations of Agamemnon, see
Lowenstam 1993, 78, with references to earlier scholarship. Martin 1989, 17, 109–13, sug-
 THE ONGOING NEIKOS 5

consistent with the poem’s unmistakable sympathy for a rigid system of

social ranking and for the group that occupies the top position in this
system.
Yet Thersites’ description is not necessarily the proof positive of
low status that it is asserted to be in most class-conflict interpretations of
his appearance in the Iliad. For the (generally unstated) assumption is
that any uncertainties raised by the existence of a highly ranked Thersites
in non-Homeric traditions are allayed by the harshness with which he is
characterized in the Iliad. In other words, if the Iliad in the course of its
development appropriated a highly ranked Thersites from non-Homeric
traditions and demoted him to the ple\thus class, its elaborate negative
introduction of him is in part motivated by the need to solve problems
created by his appropriation and demotion.10 This explanation is not
impossible, but it is labored. And it remains the case that, for all its length
and specificity, the Iliad’s description of Thersites does not in the end
make a clear statement of his status, even though the potential for confu-
sion could be obviated easily enough by deploying a different significant
name for the “brash” (thrasus) character or by providing some detail to
distinguish him from the highly ranked Thersites.11
These problems do not arise if the Iliad constructs Thersites as a
member of the basileus class. First, the Iliadic and non-Homeric Thersites
traditions remain consistent. Second, the conflict between Odysseus and
Thersites, far from being a novel narrative instance in the Iliad, is then
identifiable as a variation on a recurrent theme, “elite competition,” by
which I mean rivalry for relative status within a class of highly ranked,
nominal equals.12 In the Iliad, the Greek “elite” thus defined are the
basileis, who exercise direct command over the contingents that make up

gests that Thersites’ status as a “man of the de\mos” is reflected in his unpolished manner of
speaking; for a more sympathetic assessment of Thersites’ rhetorical ability, see Kouklanakis
1999, 40–46.
10
Cf. Lincoln 1994, 34.
11
“Thersites” was already recognized as a “speaking name” by the AL scholia to
Iliad 2.212. The Iliad in a number of instances explicates its relationship to non-Homeric
tradition; for example, the absence of Meleagros from the Trojan war is glossed in the
Catalog of Ships (2.641–43). In any case, Thersites appears to have been an anti-heroic
character in non-Homeric tradition as well as in the Iliad; according to Pherekydes (FGrH
3 F 123), his behavior in the Kalydonian boar hunt earned him corporal punishment—
another instance of elite competition taken to the level of violence.
12
Cf. Raaflaub 1997, 634. The elite competition model is comparable to Sealey’s
1976, 22, conception of “vertical” stratification in the early Greek polis, though I approach
the phenomenon as an ideological construct rather than a historical reality.
6 J. MARKS

the ple\thus and who follow Agamemnon in his capacity as primus inter
pares. The most developed example of elite competition in the Iliad is of
course the conflict between Achilleus and Agamemnon, which also esca-
lates from verbal sparring to the point of violence—Achilleus ponders
killing him (1.188–92)—all before the assembled army. Other Homeric
examples of this theme include the ongoing strife between Zeus and
Here and the disputes that arise during Patroklos’ funeral games in the
Iliad, and the recurrent theme of friction between a leader and his
second-in-command, as in the case of Hektor and Poulydamas in the
Iliad and of Odysseus and Eurylochos in the Odyssey.
There remains the question of the Iliad’s description of Thersites.
For any compelling argument in favor of the elite competition model
must offer an explanation for his ugliness and detachment from family
and homeland, and for the public humiliation he receives, in terms not
predicated on a class distinction between him and Odysseus. Also impor-
tant in this discussion will be a related set of issues concerning the
response that this humiliation elicits from the crowd. For if Thersites is
highly ranked, the ple\thus’ approval of his drubbing signals, not their
rejection of class consciousness, but rather their ratification of the mecha-
nism of elite self-regulation as it is operated by Odysseus.

II. VOICES OF BLAME: THERSITES, ARCHILOCHOS,

HIPPONAX, AND THE BEGGAR ODYSSEUS

An explanation for Thersites’ physical appearance and lack of pedigree

that is not based on the assumption of his low social status can be found
in the recurrent themes of praise and blame in the Iliad and in ancient
Greek poetics generally. Gregory Nagy has argued that through these
themes, which he believes to be among the more ancient in Homeric
poetry, “Greek epic presents its own genesis in terms of the opposition
between praise and blame.”13 Nagy points out that the Iliad’s attribution
to Thersites of a penchant for raising a laugh at the expense of the
basileis (215) aligns him with two archetypal “blame personas” in ancient
Greek poetry, the iambic poets Archilochos and Hipponax. Thersites’
abuse of Agamemnon is thus thematically equivalent to Archilochos’
attacks on Lykambes and Hipponax’ on Boupalos. For example, Thersites
subjects basileis to laughter (geloiion), and Archilochos makes Lykambes

13
Nagy 1990b, 17; cf. 1996, 60–62. Lowry 1991 examines in detail the themes of
shame and comedy as they relate to Thersites and archaic poetic personas.
 THE ONGOING NEIKOS 7

an object of laughter (nu\n de de\ polus / astoisi phaineai gelo\s, 172.3–4

West); and both accuse their targets of committing lo\be\, “outrage”
(lo\be\saio, Iliad 2.242; Luka]mba . . . lo\be\t[, 54.8–9 West). Likewise,
Thersites’ claim that Agamemnon “brings evil on the sons of the Achaians”
(kako\n epibaskemen huias Achaio\n, 234) can be compared with Hipponax’
accusation that Boupalos “deceives the children of the Erythraians”
(the\peo\n tous Eruthraio\n paidas, 12.1 West). In each case, the laughter
generated by the blame figure is meant to expose the damage that the
object of blame has inflicted on the community; in no case is there any
indication that the blame attaches to a class of people or its prerogatives.
Nagy suggests that, in the Iliad, “the base appearance of Thersites
serves to mirror in form the content of his blame poetry.”14 Again, we
may compare Archilochos and Hipponax, whose vitae, while preserving
no description in terms as lavish as those used for the Iliadic Thersites,
suggest that they too lacked heroic physical characteristics. Pliny pre-
serves the tradition of Hipponax’ “remarkable ugliness,” and Pindar
describes an Archilochos “fed fat on heavy-worded hatreds.”15 More-
over, not only the ugliness but also the near anonymity of the Iliadic
Thersites is paralleled in the iambic personas. Archilochos was reputedly
the son of a Parian nobleman and a slave, and this “nothos-stance”
corresponds to Thersites’ lack of patronymic. Similarly, Hipponax was
said to have been exiled, and this “metanastic stance” is comparable to
Thersites’ lack of homeland.16 In other words, Thersites’ revolting phy-
sique and detachment from family and homeland are unmistakable mark-
ers of his social function rather than of his social status.
What makes Thersites’ thematic identification as a blame persona
particularly significant for our understanding of his social status is that

14
Nagy 1979, 253–62, with 222–26; cf. Gentili 1988, 107–14.
15
Hipponax: “Hipponacti notabilis foeditas vultus erat; quamobrem imaginem eius
lascivia iocosam hi proposuere ridentium circulis,” Pliny HN 36.11 = West Testimonia;
Archilochos: “psogeron Archilochon barulogois echthesin / piainomenon,” Pindar Pythia
2.55–56 (for corpulence as a negative attribute, see Odyssey 10.113); cf. Nagy 1979, 222–30.
Though Archilochos’ bloating is metaphorical here, the significant fact is that his blame
function is assimilated to a negative physical trait. Suggestive as well in this context is the
supposed ugliness of Sokrates (e.g., Plato Symposium 215b), another highly ranked blame
figure. Comparable themes recur in the figure of Tyrtaios; see Lowry, 1991, 191–206.
16
Archilochos: Kritias 88 B 44 D.–K. = 295 West; Hipponax: Suda ii.665.16 Adler =
Testimonia West. The metanastic stance may also be compared to that of Hesiod, another
poetic persona with thematic connections to blame poetry; see Martin 1992. Likewise,
metanastic and nothos themes figure in the (blame) persona adopted by Odysseus in the
Odyssey (13.258–59, 14.202–3; further discussion of the “blame Odysseus” below).
8 J. MARKS

Archilochos and Hipponax seem to have been conceived as highly ranked

figures. Their very names, “leader in the ambush” and “lord of horses,”
respectively, imply high ranking; more importantly, Archilochos was sup-
posedly descended from the founder of a colony and was a recipient of
cult honors, while political intrigue was said to have been responsible for
Hipponax’ exile.17 This evidence suggests that these blame personas,
however much the poetry associated with them may have fanned resent-
ment against entrenched class distinctions, were constructed as voices of
dissent from within a highly ranked group, rather than as attacks on this
group by spokesmen for the ple\thus.18 Thersites, by extension, can be
interpreted as an incursion of iambic poetics rather than of class-
consciousness into the epic narrative of the Iliad. That the Iliad vocifer-
ates against him, while the iambic personas are the heroes of their own
discourse, can be understood in terms of genre: iambos is “at home” in
iambic poetry; in epic poetry, it is reduced to the role of foil for the
dominant theme of praise.
Further, the reaction that these blame figures elicit from the object
of blame is in each case dramatic. Thersites’ denunciation of Agamemnon
motivates his chief apologist in the Iliad, Odysseus, to attack him ver-
bally and physically. The victims of the iambic personas also react vio-
lently, though the reaction is directed against themselves. Archilochos’
denunciation of Lykambes and his daughters supposedly drove them to
hang themselves (Testimonia 19, 24 Gerber), and Hipponax is said to
have had the same effect on Boupalos (West Testimonia = Pliny HN
36.4.12). The difference between offensive and self-destructive action is
to be sure enormous, but these responses are still in important respects
thematically equivalent. For, as will be discussed below, from a sociologi-
cal perspective the most effective response by a highly ranked figure to
an affront by a figure of less status would seem to be no response at all,
so that the salient fact is not so much the nature of the response as that
the target of blame feels compelled to respond in the first place. Again,
the range of responses can be explained in terms of genre: iambic, to

17
Archilochos: Testimonia 3 Gerber (the “Mnesiepes Inscription”); Hipponax: West
Testimonia. The significance of Homeric lochos for highly ranked Homeric heroes is dis-
cussed by A. Edwards 1985, 15–41.
18
Thus Gentili 1988, 108: “The mood that it [ancient Greek blame poetry] invokes is
the gay, vital one of the ko\mos—the festive banquet procession in which friends (phíloi)
and comrades (hetaı\roi) took part, members of a single confraternity bound together by a
particular set of social and political interests.” See also the observation of Donlan 1979, 60,
that Thersites’ speech “is directed against Agamemnon’s abuse of his position . . . not
against [authority] itself.”
 THE ONGOING NEIKOS 9

paraphrase Nagy’s memorable formulation, awards the last laugh to

iambic figures; epic on the other hand awards it to heroes.19
Taken together, these considerations suggest that the Iliad’s sup-
pression of Thersites’ patronymic and homeland, and its attribution to
him of a revolting physical appearance and unmeasured speech, can be
accounted for better in terms of his similarities to the traditional figure
of the iambic poet, whose blame function he reproduces, than in terms of
his social class. Further, the apparent discrepancy between Thersites’
social standing in non-Homeric poetry and his presentation in the Iliad
reproduces the contrast between the biographical traditions of figures
such as Archilochos and Hipponax and their constructed personas as
blame poets, as well as the contrast between the valorization of iambic
themes in different genres.
An instructive confluence of similar themes can be found in the
Odyssey, when Odysseus assumes a disguise after returning to Ithake.
First he tells Athene that he is a nobleman in exile (Odyssey 13.258–66),
and after she has transformed him into an ugly old beggar (13.430–38),
he claims to be the son of a nobleman and a concubine (14.202–3; cf.
17.419–24, 19.181–84). Like the iambic personas, the disguised Odysseus
is a member of the elite who lacks some of the defining characteristics of
his “true” social group; and it is in this disguise that he heaps blame on
the suitors and himself suffers verbal and physical abuse.20 Odysseus’
base appearance and obscure lineage, in other words, are motivated not
only by his need for a disguise but also by the function he will perform
while disguised: his assumed status as a blame persona is better suited to
verbal sparring with the suitors than is his “true” heroic identity. Signifi-
cantly, Odysseus doffs this disguise before confronting the suitors in
battle. Thus the contrast between Odysseus’ constructed blame persona
and his true identity as basileus reproduces the contrast between Thersites’
high ranking in epichoric tradition and the Iliad’s marginalization of him,
in like manner as it reproduces the contrast between the “base” elements
in Archilochos’ and Hipponax’ constructed poetic personas and their
“true” social standing.21 While the iambic personas and the beggar

19
Nagy 1979, 262: “In the Thersites episode of the Iliad, it is Epos that gets the last
laugh on the blame poet, rather than the other way around.”
20
Seidensticker 1978 documents the close correspondence between the beggar
Odysseus in the Odyssey and the Archilochean persona.
21
Similarly, the lame and fatherless, but still Olympian, Hephaistos is like Thersites
compromised at the levels of form and identity and like him helps reconstitute a commu-
nity of elites after a rift between two influential members (at the end of Iliad 1); cf.
Thalmann 1988, 17, n. 41, citing Sikes 1940.
10 J. MARKS

Odysseus lack attributes that most members of the elite group possess,
they nevertheless maintain a measure of elite status, so that Thersites in
Iliad 2, by analogy, can be seen as having relatively less status than
Odysseus but as belonging nevertheless to the same elite group.

III. EXPANDING THE FIELD OF INQUIRY:

METHOD AND THEORY

I therefore conclude provisionally that proponents of the class-conflict

model who see in the Iliad’s description of Thersites a negative valoriza-
tion of the politically conscious ple\thus respond to, and misidentify, one
facet of a construct that is built instead on the traditional thematic axis of
praise and blame. Of course, my arguments thus far do not offer conclu-
sive proof that Thersites is ranked highly in the Iliad. And indeed, given
that he is not a historical figure and that the always-complicated question
of authorial intent is even more intractable in the case of orally derived
narratives such as the Iliad, it is difficult to imagine what form such proof
might take. This being the case, it may fairly be asked what is to be gained
by abandoning the class-conflict model, which offers a satisfying—and I
might add eminently teachable—hermeneutic. I have already suggested
some of the strengths of the elite competition model: coherence for
Thersites across the epic tradition, consistency in status among the named
speakers in the Iliad, and parallels with iambic poetry and the Odyssey.
In the remainder of this study, I hope to demonstrate that abandoning
the class-conflict interpretation of Thersites does not close off the com-
parative and sociological perspectives that have made the class-conflict
model so attractive, but that the elite competition model in fact proves
equally if not more amenable to such methodologies.
I should first make clear that my approach to the Iliadic Thersites
scene requires a distinction between the “internal” logic of a character’s
construction on the one hand and the “external” perspective of the
character’s reception on the other. In terms of the latter perspective, I do
not contend that the Iliad is a “closed text”; on the contrary, it seems
probable that different constituencies within the Homeric audience could
interpret the Thersites scene in different ways. Thus, for instance, elites
might understand Thersites as a seditious member of the rabble, or
alternatively as a demagogue, while less highly ranked members of an
audience might identify in him one of their own who, despite his humili-
ation, manages to distinguish himself by drawing attention to the foibles
of the leadership. Indeed, the diversity of critical responses to Thersites
 THE ONGOING NEIKOS 11

may in a sense reenact the plurality of responses among the Homeric

audience.22 From the perspective of reception, then, Thersites’ social
status remains “open,” contingent on the predilections of individual wit-
nesses to performances of the narrative we know as Iliad 2.
It is possible that the Iliad, whether by accident, evolution, or
design, embeds no specific “internal” assumptions about Thersites’ social
standing either.23 My rejection of this conclusion is based in the first
instance on my reading of scholars such as Walter Donlan, Kurt Raaflaub,
and Hans van Wees, who have demonstrated that, in both Homeric epics,
characters behave in ways that are informed by, and reproduce, social
institutions such as gift exchange, marriage customs, and the economy of
the household, with sufficient consistency to justify use of the term
“Homeric society.”24 (While I shall continue to use this term, “epic soci-
ety” is perhaps more accurate, since the Hesiodic evidence and that from
other pre-classical Greek epic generally complements the Homeric evi-
dence.) The referents for this society are presumably social institutions
observed and experienced by the singers and audiences of the epics,
albeit with an archaizing and generalizing patina.25
We may assume that the coherence of the social world described in
the epics is not the product of conscious planning on the part of singers:
“the poet was an artist, not a historian or sociologist.”26 Instead, Homeric
tradition elaborates a kind of synthetic society that remained intelligible
to the consumers of Homeric poetry. An analogy exists in the language
of the epics, which synthesizes different Greek dialects and, while spoken
(or rather sung) only by epic poets, seems to have been intelligible to
most or all ancient Greeks. Thus singers presumably, in the act of includ-
ing a character in the plot of an epic, enforced on that character the
constraints of epic society, in like manner as the character will speak only
in the epic dialect. Of course, Homeric society is less complex and varie-
gated than the societies in which ancient Greek singers and their audi-
ences lived, if for no other reason than that it can be assumed to privilege
the concerns and biases of people who could afford to sponsor and

22
See Rose 1988 on the “plural voices of Thersites,” especially 6–11.
23
Thus Rose 1988, 13–15, argues that, if the Thersites scene is intended to reinforce
aristocratic ideology, the very fact of its inclusion admits the fact of class struggle in a
manner that could not be controlled by “any particular bard.”
24
Donlan 1979, 51–52; van Wees 1992, 261–65; Raaflaub 1997; cf. Crielaard 1995, 275;
Morris 2000, 171–76; for the countervailing view, see Snodgrass 1974.
25
The principle of “homeostasis”; cf. Ong 1982, 46–49; Morris 1986, 86–89.
26
Raaflaub 1997, 627.
12 J. MARKS

devote time to epic performances. One of the consequences of this impe-

tus toward simplification and regularization, I submit, is the evolution of
a poetic convention that is at the same time an ideological construct and
a social reality: the manner in which members of a status group challenge
the prerogatives of a more highly ranked group, the opportunities for
such a challenge, and the range of acceptable responses, were relatively
well defined. Thus Homeric society does not reflect a putative Greece
before status groups came into conflict but rather the willingness of
singers and audiences to imagine a world in which class-conflict remains
at most implicit.
This is not to say that the ancient Greek epic tradition allows for no
tension at all between elites and non-elites. For instance, the suitors in
the Odyssey evince concern for “public opinion,” as does Penelope (16.375
and 2.101, respectively); and there appears to be a status differential
between the basileis criticized in the Works and Days and the Hesiodic
persona through which the criticism is articulated. In neither of these
cases, however, is the idea of class conflict focalized through a member of
the ple\thus. The suitors and Penelope clearly belong to the aristocracy;
and the Hesiodic persona, who owns land and slaves, and has other free
men in his employ, can hardly be considered a social equal of the Iliadic
ple\thus.27 Further, the suitors and Penelope raise the issue of public
opinion in private conversations, while the Hesiodic persona’s complaints
in the public arena are presented as divinely authorized utterances (cf.
Works and Days 1–10). If the Iliadic Thersites is a member of the ple\thus,
then, he is unique in being allowed to address class conflict from a non-
elite perspective, in public and at length.
Thersites, like other Iliadic characters, is necessarily embedded in
the Iliad’s system of social ranking, and it follows that his place in this
system determines how he interacts with other characters. Some support
for this proposition can be found in the Iliad’s representation of the
voice of the ple\thus generally. Leaving aside Thersites for the moment,
direct speech by members of the ple\thus in the Iliad remains confined to
what are described in narratological terms as “tis-speeches,” observa-
tions that reflect the collective opinion of the group as a whole.28 An
example of this phenomenon occurs in the passage under discussion,
when the troops’ verbal response to Odysseus’ treatment of Thersites is

27
As Griffith 1983, 62, points out, the Hesiodic persona never claims to have worked
the land himself.
28
De Jong 1987. This fact has not gone unnoticed by proponents of the class-conflict
model; cf. Andreyev 1991, 342.
 THE ONGOING NEIKOS 13

attributed, “thus someone (tis) would say” (2.271) and “thus spoke the
ple\thus” (278). I note another, more obvious aspect of the Iliadic social
system: no audience ancient or modern is likely to interpret the warriors
in the Iliad as being anything other than adult, male, and freeborn,
whether or not each is described explicitly in these terms. I conclude that
the Iliad constructs Thersites in a manner that is consistent with the
overall pattern of social relationships in Homeric epic, though again an
auditor or reader is not constrained to interpret him in the Iliad’s terms
in order to derive meaning from the narrative. The present study, then,
approaches Thersites’ status from the “internal” perspective, and it is in
this limited context that I propose that the exchange between Thersites
and Odysseus in Iliad 2 is best interpreted as an example of elite
competition.
In what follows, I first proceed with my account of Thersites’ role in
the larger epic tradition. In doing so, I revisit conclusions reached by
scholars of the so-called Analytic and Neo-Analytic schools, who have
argued that the poet or redactor of the Iliad appropriates such non-
Homeric, and for them pre-Iliadic, Thersites traditions as those discussed
above, but shapes them to further his own poetic aims.29 While my work
draws on the findings of these scholars, my own approach differs from
theirs in two important ways. First, instead of a “source-and-recipient”
model, I employ an “intertextual” hermeneutic, the “text” here being
understood as a hypothetical performance that Homeric audiences would
assign to a category analogous to our concept of the Iliad.30 Approached
this way, the Iliad invites and exploits for dramatic effect the comparison
of its own representation of Thersites with non-Homeric representations
of this memorable character, while non-Homeric traditions respond in
turn to the Iliad and to each other. Laura Slatkin has described this kind
of relationship as “reverberation,” the parallel deployment of “a constel-
lation of themes that establish bearings for the poem as it unfolds . . .
linking it continually to other traditions and paradigms and to a wider
mythological terrain.”31 Similarly, the relationship between the Thersites
scenes in the Iliad and in another epic to be discussed, the Aithiopis, can
be described as “specular,” a term Pietro Pucci has used in arguing that

29
Wilamowitz-Moellendorff 1916, 268–70; Kullmann 1960, 146–50; Ebert 1969 with
further bibliography. An alternative approach was taken by (the Unitarian) Reinhardt
1961, 114–15, who argued that the Iliad denies Thersites the status of a demagogue that he
enjoyed in a pre-Iliadic story.
30
Cf. Nagy 1990a, 52–81.
31
Slatkin 1991, 108; cf. xv–xvi, borrowing the term “reverberation” from Lang 1983.
14 J. MARKS

the Iliad and Odyssey respond to each other, regardless of which, if

either, began first to be performed or was first to achieve the form in
which we know it.32 By my interpretation, intertextual “reverberation”
and “specularity” likewise reflect a state of mutual awareness between
Iliadic and non-Homeric traditions at a time before the fixation of either,
whether in performance or as a written text.33
A second fundamental difference between my approach and (Neo-)
Analysis is that my main interest is not source-criticism but rather how
the relationship between Homeric and non-Homeric Thersites traditions
can help to clarify our understanding of the Iliad, and of Homeric society
in general, and can help conversely to reconstruct the thematics of frag-
mentary narratives such as the Aithiopis. My conclusions are not founded
on the assumption that the accounts here discussed are coeval. I do
however find that this view accounts better than the source-and-recipient
model for the Iliad’s reference to prior conflicts involving Thersites, and
for the prominence of the Thersites scenes in the Iliad and Aithiopis.
I conclude by considering how the more detailed picture of Thersites
that emerges from juxtaposition of the Homeric and non-Homeric mate-
rial is amenable to comparisons to other, non-Greek epic traditions and
to the application of sociological models other than those based on class
conflict. My comparative approach here is not founded on the assump-
tion that the ancient Indic tradition, which is the source of my com-
parandum for Thersites, is related “genetically” to the ancient Greek epic
tradition through descent from an Indo-European Ur culture. Such a
relationship may indeed lie behind the occurrence of these and other
themes in similar poetic contexts in the different cultures, though cul-
tural exchange and parallel evolution could be of equal or greater impor-
tance. It is in part to provide a perspective relatively free of “genetic” or
historical assumptions that I turn as well to sociological methodologies.
My caveat here is that, while I do not assume that human societies at
comparable levels of material and social complexity elaborate inter-
changeable social structures, I do find persuasive arguments that small-

32
Pucci 1987, 40–43; cf. Cook 1995, 1–5.
33
My view of the relationship between Homeric and Cyclic epic is similar to that of
Burgess 2001, 132–71; see 166 and 169 for his refutation of arguments that the Thersites
scene in the Aithiopis is “late.” Note also the conclusion of Combellack 1976, 47: “I do not
share the confidence of scholars who have convinced themselves that Thersites is pre-
Homeric, but neither have I seen any reason . . . to feel confident that Homer invented
him.”
 THE ONGOING NEIKOS 15

scale, pre-industrial societies, owing to the relatively limited number of

material variables attending them, may generate analogous systems to
regulate social exchange.
Let me summarize the scope of my inquiry and the theoretical
bases for it. My concern is with the Iliad’s construction of Thersites, as
distinct from his reception. I consider the Iliad, Odyssey, and non-Homeric
material discussed here to have taken shape at a time when singers and
audiences were familiar with the main outlines of the Trojan War and
Thersites’ place in it from a variety of contexts. Further, I look to social
institutions in externally similar societies and to the self-representation
of these societies in their own poetic traditions. It is my contention that,
taken together, these considerations favor the interpretation that Thersites
is constructed in the Iliad as one of the basileis.

IV. INTERTEXTUAL PERSPECTIVES: ILIAD AND AITHIOPIS

A social distinction that is drawn in the Iliadic Thersites scene offers a

useful starting point for a more detailed application of the elite-compe-
tition model. As the scene begins, Odysseus is employing two different
speeches in order to restore order after Agamemnon’s disingenuous call
to abandon the war (2.110–41). One of these speeches is addressed to
basile\es and exochoi andres, “kings and men of standing” (188–97). With
“gentle words” (aganois epeessin), Odysseus convinces (or reminds) the
members of this highly ranked group of their duty to restrain the troops
and to preserve Agamemnon’s leadership, which derives its authority
from Zeus. The other speech is addressed to men of the people (de\mou,
andres, 198–205). Instead of “gentle words,” Odysseus directs at the low-
ranked group charges of incompetence and cowardice and drives them
(or even prods them; the verb elauno\ at 199 could mean either) with
Agamemnon’s scepter, though he again appeals to the divine right of
kings.
The recipients of both speeches take heed (211), all except Thersites,
who, without addressing Odysseus directly, undermines his support for
established authority by questioning Agamemnon’s treatment of Achilleus
and the rest of the Greek army. The simple fact that Odysseus berates
and directs the scepter against Thersites as he does the “men of the
people” might in itself be taken to demonstrate that Thersites is one of
the latter. But while Odysseus’ use of the scepter against the lower-
ranked group can be interpreted as foreshadowing its use against Thersites,
it is also a fact that the Iliad does not make clear that Odysseus would
16 J. MARKS

react with less violence were a negatively valorized but highly ranked
character, such as Oileian Aias, to voice complaints with the same pur-
port and strident delivery.34
To be sure, Iliadic scholia assert that Odysseus could not have
struck Thersites were he in fact a kinsman of Diomedes—and thus like
him ranked highly.35 Yet the scholiasts’ understanding of Homeric soci-
ety is not necessarily better informed than our own; and the few other
acts of violence outside the context of battle or dueling in the epics cast
doubt on their assertion here. In two scenes already mentioned, Achilleus
nearly stabs Agamemnon in Iliad 1, and the Odyssean Odysseus, dis-
guised as a (compromised) member of the basileus class, suffers physical
abuse from the slave Melanthios (Odyssey 17.233–34) and the highly
ranked suitor Antinoos (17.462–63). As a further example, the conflict
that erupts during Patroklos’ funeral games between Oileian Aias and
Idomeneus, both leaders of their own contingents and therefore “men of
standing,” is prevented from escalating beyond words only by the inter-
vention of Achilleus (Iliad 23.488–98).36 Thus, if elite competition in the
Homeric epics does not normally rise to the level of open violence, the
possibility of such violence is nevertheless entertained in a variety of
contexts and therefore cannot be dismissed in interpreting the Iliadic
Thersites scene.
Of course, even if it is accepted that Odysseus’ use of the scepter
against Thersites does not exclude him from the group of leaders, it
certainly does not imply his membership in this group. Thus the novelty
of having a “man of the people” speak out at this juncture, and nowhere
else in the narrative, might seem explicable as an extraordinary response
to an extraordinary situation. This is not, however, the case. For the
Thersites scene is constructed explicitly as one in a larger series of
episodes. Thersites’ description, discussed above, as one who knew “words
many and disorderly so as to make strife with basileis” (2.213–14), im-
plies that this is not the first of his harangues. A further statement by the
Homeric narrator confirms the inference: Thersites “was most hateful

34
For Oileian Aias, see Iliad 2.527–29; 23.483–84, 774–77.
35
Scholia bT to Iliad 2.212, cited in support of the class-conflict model by for
instance Lincoln 1994, 34.
36
Aias and Idomeneus are exchanging “harsh words” (chalepoisin epeessi, Iliad 23.
489), and Achilleus prevents their conflict from going “further” (protero\ et’ eris, 490), which
I take to imply beyond words to physical violence; Richardson 1993, 223, ad Iliad 23.488–
98 calls this a “dangerous moment.”
 THE ONGOING NEIKOS 17

to Achilleus and Odysseus, for he kept having a dispute with them”

(220–21).37
Again, this characterization of Thersites is consistent with his status
as a designated “blame persona.” As Nagy observes, “Thersites is the
most inimical figure to the two prime characters of Homeric epos pre-
cisely because it is his function to blame them” (emphasis in original).38
Thersites does not simply rise up at a crucial moment to question the
leadership but rather engages with it repeatedly; here again we may
compare the ongoing conflicts in which the iambic poets are said to have
engaged. The conflict between Odysseus and Thersites in Iliad 2, then, is
not conceived as a novel occurrence; it is instead part of the ongoing
drama of the Greek army in the Iliad.
And not only the Iliad. The fact that two of the basileis with whom
Thersites comes into conflict are singled out invites comparison of the
present scene with other episodes in their ongoing neikos. Such episodes
cannot be Homeric: Achilleus does not appear in Iliad 2, and Thersites
appears nowhere else in Homeric epic. In attempting to identify here a
specific allusion, the Analysts and Neo-Analysts discussed above have
drawn attention to the one other scene involving Thersites, Odysseus,
and Achilleus known to have appeared in pre-classical Greek poetry in
the Aithiopis, one of the so-called “Cyclic epics.”
The Aithiopis narrated events from the burial of Hektor to the
death of Telamonian Aias, and the scene in question caps its opening
sequence:

meyÉ ¥n [sc. ÉIliãda] §stin Afiyiop¤dow bibl¤a p°nte. . . . ÉAmaz∆n Penyes¤leia

parag¤netai Trvs‹ summaxÆsousa . . . ka‹ kte¤nei aÈtØn éristeÊousan
ÉAxilleÊw. . . . ka‹ ÉAxilleÊw Yers¤thn énaire› loidorhye‹w prÚw aÈtoË ka‹
Ùneidisye‹w tÚn §p‹ t∞i Penyesile¤ai legÒmenon ¶rvta: ka‹ §k toÊtou stãsiw
g¤netai to›wÉAxaio›w per‹ toË Yers¤tou fÒnou. metå d¢ taËta ÉAxilleÁw efiw
L°sbon ple›, ka‹ yÊsaw ÉApÒllvni ka‹ ÉArt°midi ka‹ Lhto› kaya¤retai toË
fÒnou ÍpÉ ÉOduss°vw.

37
The only other epic usage of the iterative form of neikeo\ (2.221), at Iliad 4.241,
describes Agamemnon’s delivery of provocative speeches to a series of Greek heroes
before battle. Against the possible argument that the simple description of Thersites as
making strife “with basileis” at 2.214 (cf. 247, 250) implies that he is not one of them; cf.
Iliad 2.84–86, where Nestor, clearly a basileus, departs from a council, while “the basileis”
(not, “the other basileis”) remain.
38
Nagy 1979, 260.
18 J. MARKS

After [the Iliad] are the five Books of the Aithiopis. . . . The Amazon
Penthesileia arrives as an ally to the Trojans . . . and Achilleus kills her as
she is performing her aristeia. . . . And Achilleus kills Thersites, who had
blamed and reproached his supposed passion for Penthesileia. And from
this stasis arises among the Achaians about the murder of Thersites. And
after this Achilleus sails to Lesbos and, having sacrificed to Apollo and
Artemis and Leto, is purified of the killing by Odysseus.
Proklos Chrestomathy pp. 67–68 Bernabé, 105.21–106.1 Allen39

There is a close structural similarity between the Thersites scenes

in the Iliad and Aithiopis. In each, Thersites’ abusive speech brings him
into conflict with one of the two best-known epic heroes, and in each the
conflict takes place in public and has consequences for the cohesion of
the group. Indeed, the two scenes together offer a study in the contrast
between the two visions of heroism represented by Odysseus and
Achilleus, viewed as it were through the lens of Thersites. For the two
heroes behave in analogous but opposite ways and achieve analogous
but opposite results.
In the case of Odysseus in the Iliad, his encounter with Thersites
occurs after plague, internal strife, and Agamemnon’s “test” have demor-
alized the Greek army and demonstrated how near it is to dissolution.
Odysseus’ first set of speeches checks the impetus in this direction (2.211);
then Thersites speaks up. The troops are not given an opportunity to
react to his denunciation of Agamemnon40 (which, as noted, resembles
Achilleus’ own), for the narrative moves directly to Odysseus, whose
verbal and physical response unites the ple\thus in contempt for Thersites
and admiration for himself (272–77). Odysseus capitalizes on this success
by recalling a prophecy that guarantees victory and exhorting the army
to remain until Troy falls (284–332). This speech is also well received
(333–35), so that the troops are now, for the first time since Chryses
arrived in the Greek camp at the beginning of Book 1, ready to renew
the offensive. Odysseus’ words “out-blame” the blame persona, and his
physical attack—the blow with the scepter—leaves him a laughingstock
but does not cause serious injury; and the cohesion of the group is

39
Similar accounts of Thersites’ death in, e.g., Lykophron 999–1001 with scholia
(312–13 Scheer); Diodoros 2.46.5; Quintus Smyrnaeus 1.722–65; [Apollodoros] Epitome
5.1. An exception is Sophokles Philoktetes 442–46, according to which Thersites outlives
Achilleus; scholia to 445 record the more common version.
40
Though some critics understand achnumenoi per at 2.270 to indicate sympathy for
Thersites, the troops have other, obvious reasons to feel achos (woe, pain), and they
approve Odysseus’ treatment of him; cf. Kirk 1985, 144, on this verse.
 THE ONGOING NEIKOS 19

restored. So Odysseus banishes Thersites from the Iliad; he does not,

however, bring their ongoing neikos to a permanent resolution. Instead,
he promises further humiliation if Thersites speaks up again (257–64), so
that the possibility for a recrudescence of blame in the Greek army,
another stage in the ongoing neikos, is left open, albeit at the risk of
another drubbing. The encounter between Odysseus and Thersites in the
Iliad, then, increases Odysseus’ standing with the ple\thus, contributes to
the reconstitution of group integrity, and silences Thersites for the re-
mainder of the narrative.41
In the Aithiopis, Achilleus handles an analogous situation in the
opposite way. Unlike Odysseus in the Iliad, he exercises no restraint in
dealing with Thersites and seems unable to turn the situation to his own
advantage. Achilleus simply lashes out in anger and destroys a perceived
threat to his personal honor; here again we may compare his near killing
of Agamemnon in Book 1. Most significantly, whereas Odysseus’ han-
dling of Thersites garners universal acclaim, Achilleus’ killing of him is
condemned by at least a significant portion of the army. For the reaction
to Thersites’ death is described as stasis, a word that never appears in the
Homeric epics but is common in for instance Thucydides and Herodotos,
where it refers to strife within a community. The stasis Achilleus’ behav-
ior unleashes among the Achaians might be the result of disagreement
among the basileis as to whether the killing was justifiable or as to the
proper sanction against the killer. And though not named in the extant
fragments relating to the scene, a likely candidate to challenge Achilleus’
action is Thersites’ (non-Homeric) kinsman, Diomedes (as is indeed the
case in Quintus Smyrnaeus 1.766–81). On the other hand, the stasis could
have been conceived as a clash between basileis and ple\thus over these
issues. It is even possible to imagine a greater role for the ple\thus, as the
default enforcer of sanctions against those who violate the norms of
heroic conduct, whatever the status of the offender and his victim.
In any case, Achilleus’ personal standing suffers from his encounter

41
Cf. Clay 1999, 364–65. Taking into account his sinister role in the death of Palamedes,
one of the last events in the timeline of the Trojan war before the beginning of the Iliadic
narrative (cf. Proklos 43.66 Bernabé, 105.15–16 Allen), there is a further, self-serving
motivation behind Odysseus’ behavior: Odysseus himself completes a kind of rehabilita-
tion in Iliad 2, the beginnings of which can be traced to his mission to placate Chryses and
put an end to the plague in Book 1 (308–12). Interestingly, Pausanias (10.31) describes a
fresco in Phokis depicting Palamedes and Thersites playing dice; this scene links two of
Odysseus’ enemies and provides another view of Thersites as highly ranked, since he is
engaged in sport with an epic (though not Homeric) hero.
20 J. MARKS

with Thersites, for he is banished from the army; and the group suffers as
well, for his absence leaves the Greeks vulnerable to the Trojans under
the leadership of Memnon (Proklos 68.10–13 Bernabé, 106.1–3 Allen).
Thus Achilleus in the Aithiopis also remains true to his heroic identity.
His immediate gratification of an urge to defend his sense of honor
proves detrimental to himself and to the larger social unit to which he
belongs, as his quarrel with Agamemnon in the Iliad leads to the loss of
Patroklos along with many other Greeks. Achilleus reacts without dis-
simulation or consideration, and with overwhelming force, and thereby
accomplishes what Odysseus avoids: a decisive end to the ongoing neikos
between the basileis and the figure of blame.42
This is not to deny the significant differences between the two
scenes. Odysseus in the Iliad acts for the group, intercedes at a time of
crisis, and defends what is at least overtly a challenge to another charac-
ter. Achilleus in the Aithiopis, by contrast, acts for himself, causes a crisis,
and defends his own honor. But the fact that the ongoing neikos resur-
faces in different contexts should not obscure the continuity of this
theme and its specific attachment to the two main Homeric heroes. For
the differing contexts remain consistent regarding these heroes’ identi-
ties: Achilleus is self-centered not only in the Aithiopis but throughout
the Iliad, and Odysseus, as we shall see momentarily, is generally the
defender of the group. Moreover, as alluded to above, Thersites’ speech
in the Iliad threatens to undermine not only Agamemnon’s authority but
Odysseus’ as well, so that both Achilleus and Odysseus can be seen to
engage in what is fundamentally the same project: the defense of per-
sonal standing against the corrosive voice of blame.
The structural similarities between the Thersites scenes, I therefore
propose, are best explained if the schism that threatens to materialize
within the Greek army in Iliad 2 alludes to the schism that occurs with
the death of Thersites as dramatized in the Aithiopis.43 The Iliad, by
alluding to the end of the neikos, in this instance valorizes Odysseus at

42
Cf. Archilochos Testimonia 12–18 Gerber, according to which the killer of this
iambic figure was banished from Apollo’s temple. This death, like Thersites’, suggests the
traditional figure of a pharmakos or scapegoat; cf. Murray 1934, 212–14; Katzung 1959, 63–
66; Nagy 1979, 279–81; and Thalmann 1988.
43
This is the conclusion reached through Neo-Analysis by Kullmann 1960, 304–5.
That the allusion is proleptic—that is, from the perspective of the Iliad, Achilleus has yet to
kill Thersites—is no obstacle to this interpretation, for allusions in epic regularly proceed in
such a timeless fashion. A much-discussed example of such prolepsis is the death of
Patroklos in Iliad 16, which foreshadows Achilleus’.
 THE ONGOING NEIKOS 21

the expense of Achilleus; more precisely, the Iliadic Odysseus can be

seen to assert his own heroic identity in the absence of Achilleus to the
point of invoking through his actions Achilleus’ future failure in an
analogous situation.44 From a slightly different perspective, among the
things Odysseus accomplishes in Iliad 2 is to prevent a premature ending
to Achilleus’ epic, and he thereby has some claim to the kleos that has
been promised Achilleus when he reenters the war. Of course, Odysseus’
power to effect reconciliation will fail before the implacability of Achilleus
himself in Book 9.
As discussed, the tendency has been to view the scene of Thersites’
death in the Aithiopis as derivative of or a source for Iliad 2. I have
indicated my preference for a model that allows for influence to travel in
both directions. In support of the view that the Iliad is “aware” of a story
of Thersites’ death like that told in the Cyclic epic, I note that there is no
apparent dramatic advantage in constructing the scene in Book 2 as
anything other than self-contained. The Iliad’s reference to earlier con-
flicts with Odysseus and Achilleus would then appear to be gratuitous
background information if there were no extra-Iliadic tradition of such
conflicts. This is particularly true in the case of Achilleus, for, if the Iliadic
scene is taken in isolation, Thersites is in the odd position of being named
the object of special enmity for a character who is absent and whose
cause he champions.
The complementary strand of my intertextual argument, that the
Aithiopis alludes to the Thersites scene in the Iliad, is uncontroversial.
The simple fact that the Cyclic epic narrates the end of the ongoing
neikos invites audiences to reconsider previous scenes, and, if it is impos-
sible to know anything for certain about the intended audiences for the
Cyclic epics, it is nevertheless a reasonable assumption that these audi-
ences were familiar with some version of the Iliad. Thus, as the Homeric
epic demonstrates how one of the two heroes who find Thersites “most
hateful” engages with him, the Aithiopis shows the other hero in an
analogous position. Here we may again observe a valorization of Odys-
seus’ heroics over those of Achilleus, for the figure that carries out
Achilleus’ purification after he kills Thersites, and presumably orches-
trates his return to the community so that he can defeat Memnon and
face his own death in battle, is Odysseus. At the same time, in both
Thersites scenes, Odysseus’ ability to maintain the integrity of the group

44
For a possible parallel for this “intrusion” of Odyssean thematics into the Iliadic
narrative, cf. Nagy 1979, 49–58, on the embassy scene in Iliad 9.
22 J. MARKS

proves to be limited. As discussed, his restoration of unity in Iliad 2 only

defers the problem of Achilleus’ absence, and in the Aithiopis his own
dispute with Telamonian Aias over the dead Achilleus’ arms precipitates
a further cycle of stasis that appears to have remained unresolved at the
conclusion of the narrative (cf. Proklos 69.22–24 Bernabé, 106.16–17
Allen).
Many scholars have drawn attention to the opposition between
Odysseus’ brand of heroism and that of Achilleus in Homeric poetry;
indeed, this opposition appears to be a traditional theme in archaic
Greek epic.45 Well-known examples of this theme include the two he-
roes’ disagreement over whether the Greeks should dine before entering
battle in Iliad 19 (155–237) and the neikos between them at Troy de-
scribed by Demodokos in Odyssey 8 (75–82). Likewise, Odysseus’ quar-
ters are located at the midpoint in the Greek camp at Troy, near
Agamemnon’s quarters and the agora; Achilleus, by contrast, occupies a
position at one extremity of the camp.46 The intertextual relationship
between the Iliad and Aithiopis emerges with particular clarity when
viewed in these terms. Odysseus in the Iliadic Thersites scene proves
himself the master of verbal conflicts and social situations; Achilleus
remains the master of physical conflicts and the battlefield.
I therefore propose that the tension between these two forms of
heroism serves as a locus of intertextual allusion between the Iliad and
Aithiopis traditions, in which Thersites can be regarded as a kind of
heroic test, an obstacle that the hero must meet in the course of his
heroic deeds. More generally, a conflict between hero and blame persona
can be seen as a traditional theme, the resolution of which helps define
the hero’s strengths and weaknesses. Thus the Thersites scenes in the two
epics form a complementary pair, so that awareness of both enhances the
appreciation of either and contributes to a complex but coherent view of
ancient Greek heroism. Achilleus is the hero of force and action, and his
response to Thersites in these terms proves corrosive for the group.
Odysseus is the hero of persuasion and stratagem, and his response helps
unify the group even if he does not manage to convince its members that
Thersites’ condemnation of Agamemnon is misguided. On the other
hand, however, Achilleus’ direct translation of thought into action and
his ingenuousness were admired by ancient Greeks, while Odysseus’

45
E.g., Whitman 1958, 177–80; Nagy 1979, 43–58; Edwards 1985; Cook 1995, 28–32.
46
As Martin 1989, 120, observes; for the location of the Greeks’ agora, see Iliad
7.382–83.
 THE ONGOING NEIKOS 23

ability to manipulate speech and his guile generated negative interpreta-

tions of him, as in Sophokles’ Philoktetes. In other words, the intertextual
allusions between the Iliad and Aithiopis do not so much valorize one
hero at the expense of the other as they offer additional perspectives for
interpreting the place of each in ancient Greek epic and mythology
generally. Thus the ongoing neikos with Thersites is but one facet of the
ongoing tension between the heroics of bie\ (force, violence) and those of
me\tis (mental prowess).47

IV. SOCIOLOGICAL AND COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES

These considerations raise again the question of Thersites’ social status,

in particular as it relates to his role as a blame persona. For the ability to
test highly ranked figures by blaming them repeatedly requires access to
them. Here the field of sociology, in particular the work of Anthony
Giddens, offers a concept that can be of use, that of “presence-availability.”
As Giddens observes, pre-industrial societies are distinguished by “high
presence-availability”: people tend to live face-to-face with one another.48
Under these conditions, one of the markers of power is limited presence-
availability: highly ranked members of the community shield themselves
from others by means of isolation behind walls and guards and most of
all through the reification of social structures that regulate, often in a
non-discursive fashion, who may address whom, look another in the eye,
and so on. There are of course circumstances in which such isolation is
impossible. Odysseus in the Odyssey necessarily interacts with his crew
aboard ship, for example; but once the opportunity is afforded him, as for
instance on Kirke’s island, he seems to remove himself from their pres-
ence (cf. 10.471, 479–80). The tendency, in other words, is to limit contact
between the leaders and the led; and what contact there is tends not to
include open discussion of the demands that the former place on the
latter.
So it is that the Thersites scene is the only possible exception to this
rule that the ple\thus do not challenge directly the basileis in the Iliad.
Again, this is not to say that the basileis remain utterly immune to public
opinion. The suitors’ worries about the reaction of the Ithakan populace

47
On me\tis and bie\, see Cook 1995, 5–7, 28–32.
48
Giddens 1984, 180–85, especially 182; on presence-availability as a marker of class
distinction, see 1979, 209. Of course, this concept is applicable to modern societies as well,
but Giddens’s point is that it is more pronounced in pre-modern contexts.
24 J. MARKS

to their plot against Telemachos in the Odyssey have already been men-
tioned, and with this may be compared Hektor’s concern in the Iliad to
avoid censure from any of the Trojans, even the “rather lowly” (kako\teros,
22.106). My point is rather that repeated public confrontations between
“men of standing” and “men of the people” simply are not an established
feature of Homeric society.
Once more, the archetypal blame personas of Archilochos and
Hipponax offer informative comparanda, for the ongoing feuds sug-
gested in their poetry and vitae imply regular, even socially sanctioned,
interaction between them and the highly ranked objects of their invec-
tive. And this access is in turn consistent with their status as it emerges
from the vitae: though compromised, they number nonetheless among
the “men of standing.” Like these iambic figures, Thersites participates in
an ongoing neikos, and I propose that this assumption of repeated en-
counters between him and two of the most highly ranked characters in
the epics is a defining component of his own social standing.
Following Giddens, then, highly ranked characters in the Greek
army enjoy relatively low presence-availability as regards members of
the ple\thus. In assessing the barriers to conflict between these status
groups, we may consult as well the work of Pierre Bourdieu, who studied
small-scale, pre-industrial societies in twentieth-century Algeria. Bourdieu
deduced from his fieldwork mechanisms for regulating social interac-
tions, which he called “rules of honor,” that can help illuminate how
regulation of presence-availability is linked to socially sanctioned forms
of conflict within the community. Thus Bourdieu observed that “only a
challenge (or offense) coming from an equal in honour deserves to be
taken up.” When an individual provokes someone of higher ranking, the
affront “rebounds on its author . . . likewise, dishonour would fall on the
[socially superior antagonist] who dirtied his hands in an unworthy
revenge.”49
In terms of the present argument, then, the “man of the people”
might challenge a basileus but can win such a challenge only if a superior
responds. A similar approach was taken by Moses Finley, one of the first
to apply modern sociological theories to the Thersites scene. Finley ar-
gued that “justice among the heroes . . . was a matter for equals alone”
and illustrated his point by declaring that “Menelaus could no more have
challenged Thersites to an oath than a Junker could have challenged a
Berlin shopkeeper to a duel.”50 I suggest that Finley’s description of the

49
Bourdieu 1977, 13–14.
50
Finley 1965, 115.
 THE ONGOING NEIKOS 25

overall “rule” is valid, though not his application of it to Thersites. For

the ongoing neikos involving Odysseus and Achilleus implies that Thersites
has the kind of access to the two heroes that would be required of parties
to an oath or a duel. Put another way, I see no reason, in the context of
what Finley called the “aristocratic code of honor,” to regard as qualita-
tively different the level of familiarity required for participants in an
oath or duel on the one hand and that required for disputants in an
ongoing neikos on the other. Thus, if a system comparable to Bourdieu’s
rules of honor obtains in the Iliad, were Thersites a “man of the people,”
Achilleus and Odysseus would be debasing themselves repeatedly by
engaging with him. More likely, I suggest, the ongoing neikos implies that
Thersites is, like his antagonists Odysseus and Achilleus, a “man of
standing.”
It is of course possible to identify comparanda closer in time and
worldview to Homeric society than Finley’s Junkers. One such is the
ancient Indic epic tradition, and I cite for example an incident from the
first Book of the Maha\bha\rata. During the education of the Pa\ndavas,
there is a tournament in which the young hero Arjuna demonstrates his
martial skills. After Arjuna’s display, Karna appears; he is Arjuna’s half
brother but has been raised outside the court in ignorance of his “true”
heritage and social standing. Karna taunts Arjuna with the claim that he
can match his feats and makes good his boast; then he challenges him to
a duel (1[8]126.10–15). Arjuna angrily accepts, and, as the two raise their
weapons, another character, “experienced in the conduct of duels,” pro-
claims Arjuna’s noble lineage and demands that Karna make clear his
own. Unable to do so, Karna hangs his head in shame, and the duel is
aborted (30–35). Arjuna’s enemy Duryodhana then declares that, since
Arjuna will fight only kings, he will make Karna one: the challenger is
anointed by the Brahmins and given a kingdom and the insignia of
royalty (35–40). Karna’s high social standing thus established, he and
Arjuna maintain their antagonism as the Maha\bha\rata proceeds. Thus it
is said in Book 3 that Karna “always competed with Arjuna . . . and
Arjuna with him, from their first meeting onward” (3[43]293.19–20).51
Here we may discern a constellation of themes similar to that
underlying the Thersites scenes in the Iliad and Aithiopis. The hero faces
a test in the form of opposition from a voice of blame in a paradigmatic
scene, and the opposition between the two is represented as running
through the story. Further, the voice of blame is a compromised member

51
Translations from the Maha\bha\rata are van Buitenen’s; line numbers are approxi-
mate.
26 J. MARKS

of a high status-class. In the Maha\bha\rata, however, the blame figure is

(mis)identified as a member of a low status-class; and here we may
observe an analog of the “rules of honor” as they play out in Iliad 2. For
the antagonism between Arjuna and Karna cannot be realized until the
assumed social gulf between them has been closed—in this case by the
elevation of Karna to a rank commensurate with Arjuna’s. In Giddens’s
terms, Karna is denied presence-availability as regards highly ranked
characters until he becomes one of them.52 In Bourdieu’s terms, Odysseus
demonstrates in this test that he is a “skilled strategist,” one who “can
turn a capital of provocations received or conflicts suspended . . . into an
instrument of power.” Achilleus fails to act as a skilled strategist, and in
this sense fails the test posed by the blame persona; and Arjuna seems
similarly inclined, for he is ready to fight without establishing Karna’s
credentials.53
The concept of the “skilled strategist” is an important one, for, as
Bourdieu observes, the rules of honor do not so much limit freedom of
choice as provide a field in which knowledgeable agents can further their
own aims. As he puts it, “the agents remain in command of the interval
between the obligatory moments and can therefore act on their oppo-
nents by playing with the tempo of the exchange.”54 Thus Odysseus, by
deferring a conclusive end to his neikos with Thersites, restores the
integrity of the group and at the same time demonstrates his own fitness
for the high position he holds within it. Achilleus, by contrast, reacts
immediately and instinctively and fails to exploit his confrontation with
Thersites to his own advantage by regulating the tempo of their inter-
action.
Odysseus in the Iliad, then, observes the rules of honor and beats
Thersites at his own game in front of the entire army. In the Aithiopis, by
contrast, Thersites bests Achilleus, again as the army looks on. Of course,
it seems paradoxical to describe being murdered as success. I am not
suggesting that Thersites has been seeking such an end to his neikos with

52
This is not to deny significant differences between the representations of Karna
and Thersites: Karna is characterized by physical beauty. Thus in his first meeting with
Arjuna, he enters the arena “like sun, moon, and fire in brightness, beauty and luster”
(1[8]126.1).
53
Of course, were Arjuna himself to raise the question of Karna’s standing, he might
appear unwilling to fight, so the voicing of these concerns by a third party may itself be a
traditional theme.
54
Quotes from Bourdieu 1977, 15; cf. 1980, 109, and Giddens 1984, 169–78, on the
“enabling” aspects of social constraints.
 THE ONGOING NEIKOS 27

Achilleus and Odysseus but rather that, in terms of the social code of the
epics, Achilleus’ own status diminishes when he kills Thersites, while
Thersites’ status increases by the very fact that Achilleus kills him. For
this we have Achilleus’ own testimony: in rejecting a plea for mercy by
the Trojan Lykaon, he offers the consolation of death at the hands of one
who is physically attractive and of distinguished lineage (Iliad 21.104–9).
In the Aithiopis, Achilleus’ unrestrained and immediate response to the
voice of blame proves disastrous, not because he kills a spokesman for
the ple\thus but because the killing violates the army’s sense of propriety
and, if we may extrapolate, threatens them all with pollution. Odysseus
passes the “blame test”; Achilleus fails it.

V. THERSITES: MAN OF STANDING

Comparison of the Iliadic Thersites with his character in the Aithiopis,

with the disguised Odysseus in the Odyssey, with the iambic personas
Archilochos and Hipponax, with Karna in the Maha\bha\rata, and with
sociological models suggests that his ongoing neikos with Odysseus and
Achilleus implies membership in their social class and so can be de-
scribed in terms of elite competition. I hope to have demonstrated that
the elite competition model can open up the Iliad to fresh perspectives
on class relations in Homeric society and can help to explicate one of the
fundamental themes in the archaic Greek epic tradition, the opposition
between the heroism of Odysseus and that of Achilleus, and to delineate
the thematics of the fragmentary Aithiopis.
My findings, if valid, have implications not only for Homeric studies
but also for the social history of archaic Greece. For if the Iliad con-
structs Thersites as a basileus, it is necessary to modify reconstructions of
ancient Greek social institutions that treat the Iliadic Thersites scene as
evidence for class conflict. That such conflict occurred is not in question;
what I hope to have demonstrated is that the Iliad’s construction of the
categories of classes and masses is less transparent than is generally
believed. I hope at least to have advanced the discussion of this intrigu-
ing Homeric scene and of Homeric society generally by distinguishing
more clearly external and internal perspectives on Thersites’ social sta-
tus, and by drawing attention to what various interpretations explain and
leave unexplained, and to what is gained and lost when we decide whether
Thersites is commoner or king.
The “worst of the Achaians” is defined, by my interpretation, not in
terms of social class but in terms of his relationship to the “anti-epic”
28 J. MARKS

genre of iambos, which was itself a vehicle for elite insider discourse.
Thersites is the worst of the Achaians who count, which means he is the
worst “basileus and man of standing.” He is the scurrilous blame persona,
who threatens to undermine heroic categories, but in the event helps to
define them. He makes himself hateful to basileis and ple\thus alike and
thus helps maintain group integrity. And he is a character who manages,
despite his ugliness and humiliation, to secure a measure of heroism for
himself by dying at the hands of the “best of the Achaians.”55

UNIVERSITY OF F LORIDA
e-mail: jmarks@ufl.edu

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I dedicate this paper to the memory of my teacher Steven Lowenstam, who
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