Thersites

Thersites was a common soldier in the Greek army at Troy, remembered for his ugliness and his abusive tongue. In the second book of the Iliad he rails against Agamemnon in front of the assembled army and is beaten into silence by Odysseus. A later tradition, recorded by Apollodorus, says that Achilles killed him for mocking him over the Amazon queen Penthesilea.

Thersites in the Iliad

Homer (Iliad 2.211–277) describes Thersites as the ugliest man who came to Troy. He was bandy-legged and lame in one foot, his shoulders were rounded and hunched over his chest, and his head rose to a point with only a thin stubble of hair on it. He is a man of “measureless speech”, whose mind is full of disorderly words, and who likes to revile the kings whenever he thinks it will raise a laugh among the Argives; He was hateful above all to Achilles and Odysseus, the two men he used to revile. Homer gives him no father and no city; he is the only man of the rank and file who speaks in the Iliad.

After Agamemnon has tested the army by proposing to sail home, the Greeks rush to the ships. When order is restored, Thersites alone goes on shouting. He attacks Agamemnon, claiming that his huts are full of bronze and the best of the women, which the army has given him, and asks whether he wants gold as well, or another girl to keep for himself. He urges the Greeks to sail home and leave the king to enjoy his spoils, and reminds them that Agamemnon has dishonoured Achilles, a far better man, by taking his prize (2.225–242).

Odysseus Silences Him

Odysseus stands over him, calls him a reckless speaker and threatens to strip him of his cloak and tunic and send him naked and weeping to the ships if he is found again playing the fool. He strikes Thersites on the back and shoulders with the golden sceptre. A bloody weal rises on his back, and Thersites sits down, frightened, wiping a tear from his face. The army, in spite of its own distress, laughs, and praises Odysseus for having stopped the “railer” from abusing kings (2.243–277). In Ovid, Odysseus himself recalls this scene when he claims the arms of Achilles: Ajax dared not say a word against the kings, but Thersites did, and “thanks to me, he did not miss reproof” (Metamorphoses 13.232–234).

Family

Later writers gave Thersites a noble family. Apollodorus (Library 1.8.6) names him first among the sons of Agrius, the brother of Oeneus, king of Calydon (1.7.10); since Diomedes was Oeneus’ grandson through Tydeus (1.8.5), this made Thersites his cousin. In Apollodorus’ story the sons of Agrius deposed and imprisoned the old Oeneus and gave the kingdom to their father; Diomedes came secretly from Argos with Alcmaeon and killed them all except Onchestus and Thersites, who had fled in time to the Peloponnese. The two survivors later ambushed and killed Oeneus in Arcadia (1.8.6). The Iliad knows nothing of this family.

His Death

The Iliad does not tell what became of him. Apollodorus (Epitome 5.1) records the later story: the Amazon Penthesilea, daughter of Ares and Otrere, came to help Troy and killed many Greeks, among them Machaon, before she was killed by Achilles, “who fell in love with the Amazon after her death and slew Thersites for jeering at him.” The story is older than Apollodorus: it belonged to the lost epic Aethiopis of Arctinus of Miletus, whose ancient summary (Proclus, Chrestomathy) says that Achilles killed Thersites for abusing and reviling him over his supposed love for Penthesilea, that a dispute then broke out among the Achaeans over the killing, and that Achilles sailed to Lesbos, sacrificed to Apollo, Artemis and Leto, and was purified of the bloodshed by Odysseus.

Quintus of Smyrna tells the scene in full (Posthomerica 1.722–781). As Achilles stands over the dead Penthesilea, Thersites jeers at him to his face, calling him “woman-mad” and wishing that her spear had reached his heart. Achilles strikes him a single blow beneath the ear; his teeth are dashed to the ground and he dies on the spot, to the relief of the army, which he had never ceased to abuse. Only Diomedes is angered, because Thersites was his kinsman, the son of Agrius, brother of his grandfather Oeneus; the two heroes are on the point of drawing swords before their comrades plead with them and reconcile them. The Greeks bury their dead with honour but throw the body of Thersites into a pit by itself.

Thersites in Later Writers

Thersites became the type of the low, ugly man set against the heroes. In Plato’s Gorgias, Socrates observes that the poets place kings such as Tantalus, Sisyphus and Tityus among the incurably wicked in Hades, but that no one has portrayed Thersites, a mere private man, as punished in that way (Gorgias 525d–e). In the myth of Er at the end of the Republic, the soul of “the buffoon Thersites” is seen choosing the body of an ape for its next life (Republic 10.620c). Lucian imagines Thersites dressed in the armour of Achilles and asks whether that would make him handsome and strong (The Ignorant Book-Collector 7).

See Also: Achilles, Odysseus, Agamemnon, Amazons, Trojan War, Oeneus