Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Marks, J.
AMERICAN
JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY
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.
American Journal of Philology 126 (2005) 1–31 © 2005 by The Johns Hopkins University Press
2 J. MARKS
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
51
Translations from the Maha\bha\rata are van Buitenen’s; line numbers are approxi-
mate.
26 J. MARKS
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.
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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55
I dedicate this paper to the memory of my teacher Steven Lowenstam, who
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30 J. MARKS
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