Ancient Greece’s Legacy for Liberty: The Counsel of Thersites

The Iliad begins in the tenth year of the Achaian (Greek) expedition against Troy, an expedition thus far unsuccessful. Early in the poem, Agamemnon, leader of the expedition, decides to test the morale of his troops by falsely announcing plans to give up the campaign and return home:

Unfortunately for Agamemnon, his troops are more homesick and battle‐​weary than he has bargained for, and they accept the proposal with unexpected alacrity:

In short, it’s not only Achilles but the entire army that prefers the life of domestic peace to that of foreign war. And so “a homecoming beyond fate might have been accomplished,” ⁴ – but Odysseus (a former draft evader as tradition has it, though once compelled to join the war effort he became pretty thoroughly committed) quickly rushes into the crowd to call them back.

Odysseus’s manner of engagement varies strikingly depending on the class of the person he is remonstrating with. Toward those of high position or noble birth he is mild and respectful:

But when he encounters a commoner, the “soft words” are replaced by insults and blows:

(“Excellency” is a misleadingly deferential translation of a Greek term which can properly be used to address either nobles or commoners; “good sir” would be a bit closer.)

Odysseus chastises the commoners for their temerity in acting on their own judgment rather than bowing to Agamemnon: “Surely not all of us Achaians can be as kings here. Lordship for many is no good thing. Let there be one ruler .…” ⁷ Of course such a reproof is doubly unfair: first, because they are not defying Agamemnon but on the contrary are acting as Agamemnon has just (insincerely) instructed them; and second, because the commoners aren’t doing anything that the nobles aren’t doing too, yet the latter have received a much gentler reproof.

It is at this point that Thersites – one of the despised commoners, a buffoon, “bandy‐​legged” and “lame of one foot,” with “shoulders stooped and drawn together over his chest,” and a head that “went up to a point” ⁸ – enters the narrative:

Thersites also describes, quite accurately, Agamemnon’s childish and greedy behavior in his dispute with Achilles, which Homer has shown the reader in the previous book.

Odysseus’s response to Thersites’ outburst is swift: he “dashed the sceptre against his back and shoulders,” so that Thersites “doubled over, and a round tear dropped from him, and a bloody welt stood up between his shoulders,” while the spectators “laughed over him happily.” ¹⁰

Is the reader supposed to join in the mirth? Some interpreters have thought so; indeed, Homer is periodically charged with “aristocratic bias.” ¹¹ Literary theorist Kenneth Burke sees the Thersites episode as a technique for “silencing objections of any in the audience who might tend to rebel,” by getting the objection “stated in the work itself” but “voiced in a way that in the same breath disposes of it” through making its spokesman “the abominable Thersites, for whom no ‘right‐​minded’ member of the Greek audience was likely to feel sympathy.” ¹² And classical scholar Gerard Else, in terms reminiscent of Nietzsche, reads Homer as uncritically accepting the Greek class system:

All the same, even if Homer does buy into the idea that merit correlates with class, he seems to regard the correlation as environmentally determined rather than innate: “Zeus of the wide brows takes away one half of the virtue from a man, once the day of slavery closes upon him.” ¹⁴ Moreover, if Homer’s aim is to discredit Thersites, why does he make his condemnation of Agamemnon so accurate – and why does he make his target one of the least sympathetic of the aristocratic characters? Why, too, does he place the Thersites incident in the context of a gross deception on Agamemnon’s part, followed up by grossly unfair brutality on the part of Odysseus? And finally, why does Thersites’ call to return home end up being echoed later in the poem by the handsome, heroic, and aristocratic Achilles?

In his introduction to his own translation of the Iliad, the poet and classicist Robert Graves calls Thersites’ remarks a “sensible and telling speech,” and notes: “To dissociate himself from Thersites’ sentiments, Homer presents him as bow‐​legged, bald, hump‐​backed, horrible‐​looking, and a general nuisance; but the speech and Odysseus’ brutal action stay on record.” ¹⁵ I don’t think it’s implausible to see the character of Thersites as embodying Homer’s own skepticism both about the superiority of the aristocracy and about the glorious purpose of war.