THE UGLY SIDE TO THE ILIAD

 

“This was the ugliest man who came beneath Ilion. He was bandy-legged and went lame of one foot, with shoulders stooped and drawn together over his chest, and above this his skull went up to a point with the wool grown sparsely upon it.” The Iliad Book II.

In the heroic world of the Iliad, those figures who because of their physical disabilities are perceived to fall short of the mark are often ridiculed and reviled. The case of Thersites, a Greek soldier punished for having the effrontery to speak truth to power, is a case in point. Yet a close analysis of Homer’s disabled characters in the epic reveals that rather than being figures of scorn, they act as symbols of the voiceless and the marginalized, their mistreatment serving as a stark critique of the unjust power dynamics that exist within the world of the Iliad.

Homer does not mention Thersites’ father's name in the Iliad, implying common origins rather than an aristocratic pedigree, and thus magnifying his effrontery when he takes his social betters to task. Above all it is physical deformity that renders him unequal to other men and thus barred from voicing dissent, with the poet referring to him as: “Evil-favoured…beyond all men that came to Ilios.”

When he does dare to criticise the avarice of the leaders of the Greek army, Homer deliberately feminises Thersites, stating not that he merely spoke his mind, but rather, than he uttered “shrill cries.” The main object of Thersites’ ire is King Agamemnon, who he condemns for his squabble with Achilles over ownership of the slave girl Briseis. In castigating him for his avarice, his manipulation of the war solely for the amassing of plunder and his total disregard for the welfare of his men, Thersites immediately becomes subversive, not only because he is subverting the social order by criticising a king but also in his attempt to feminise in turn, all of the king’s followers for not objecting to his reprehensible behaviour:

“Son of Atreus, what’s your problem now, what more do you need? Your huts are filled with bronze, crowded with women, the pick of the spoils we Achaeans grant you when we sack a city. Is it gold you want now, the ransom for his son some horse-taming Trojan shall bring you out of Ilium, the son that I or some other Achaean have bound and led away? Or a young girl to sleep with, one for you alone? Is it right for our leader to wrong us in this way? Fools, shameful weaklings, Achaean women, since you’re no longer men, home then with our ships, and leave this fellow here, at Troy, to contemplate his prizes.”

Thersites’ words are caustic and bitter, yet there is no secret made about the fact that he is deliberately trying to conduct criticism through laughter and satire, as he “cared not what he said, so that he might set the Achaeans in a laugh.”

Ultimately though, the laugh will be on him, for Odysseus will refuse to get the joke. Berating Thersites as one of whom there is “none baser,” he rebukes him for having the temerity to challenge Agamemnon. He threatens to “strip away” his clothing and send him “bare and howling back to the fast ships, whipping you out of the assembly place with the strokes of indignity.” The threat however, apparently needs to be backed up by violence and he proceeds to physically assault him. Homer is careful to note that while many of those present share Thersites’ sentiments, Thersites’ humiliation, which causes him emotional anguish and shame as well as pain, brings them great joy as they delight in seeing him humbled:

“Odysseus, struck with his staff at Thersites’ back and shoulders, and the man cowered and shed a huge tear, as a bloody weal was raised behind by the golden staff. Then terrified, and in pain, he sat, helplessly wiping the tear from his eye.”

What is important here is that the deformed Thersites, barred from critiquing those in authority, is silenced. It is for this reason that those witnessing and thus implicated in the hapless Thersites’ humiliation comment on Odysseus’ assault: “This is surely the best thing he’s done for us Greeks, in shutting this scurrilous babbler’s mouth. I think Thersites’ proud spirit will shrink from ever again abusing kings with his foul words.” An army riven by dissent and discord is suddenly united in its mutual derision of the disabled.

This disturbing scene has modern antecedents. In November 2015, US President Donald Trump mocked the physical appearance of disabled reporter Serge Kovaleski, after he questioned one of his claims. It is also a scene mirrored in more exalted spheres elsewhere in the Iliad, which give rise to questions as to the meaning of the disabled in Homer’s symbolic palette.

One cannot imagine more perfect beings than the gods. Yet it is on Olympus, in Book I, that we meet a disabled figure who is immortal: the lame Hephaestus. As in the case of Thersites, his affliction is used as a means of creating mirth that will dissipate conflict. Hera is angry at Zeus and he threatens her with physical violence if she does not submit to his will: “Now sit there, quiet, and obey me; lest I set my all-powerful hands on you, and all the gods of Olympus lack the strength save you.”

Hephaestus, who was maimed by Zeus’ violence hastens to his mother, highlighting the potential grave consequences of her defiance:

“Be patient, mother, and contain your anger, lest you who are dear to me are beaten while I look on. For all my pain, there’s no way I could help you, the Olympian is a tough antagonist to face. Once before, when I rushed to save you, he seized me by the foot and hurled me from heaven’s threshold; all day headlong I plunged, and fell, with the sun, half-dead, to Lemnos’ shore.”

The lame god then seeks to provoke laughter by acting as cup-bearer to the other gods and indulging in self-ridicule, stumbling here and there on his bad foot. The gods laugh at his own self-mockery and peace is restored. What possible distinguishes Hephaestus from his Thersites is his acknowledgment of his disfigurement. While Thersites appears to ignore it and to demand to be treated like an equal, Hephaestus seems to believe that this is not possible. By “owning” his disability and accepting his lower status, he can weaponise it in order to bring about a desired outcome even if this is submission to a patriarchal order.

Other disabled characters in the Homeric epics are treated with greater respect. Demodocus the Bard is blind, but his songs are in great demand. He is one “whom the Muse loved above all others, [al]though she had mingled good and evil in her gifts, robbing him of his eyes but granting him the gift of sweet song.” He so appreciated by Odysseus, that he is moved to gift him one of his own pork chops. It should be noted however, that at no time does Demodocus seek to disrupt the pre-established order and for all his blindness, he is not described as physically ugly.

The word Homer employs to describe Thersites is αἴσχιστος, an ambiguous term that could mean either “ugliest” or “most shameful,” thus intertwining physical deformity with morality, a concept common to the ancient world. Viewed from this perspective, Thersites’ physical appearance may be considered a reflection of his character by the Greek ruling class but the manner in which Homer portrays the scene provokes in his audience a sense of pity and empathy for Thersites that transcends notions of class and highlights social injustice and the importance of personal courage.

A complex character that defies stereotypification, Thersites’ literary legacy is diverse. Mentioned in Plato's Gorgias as an example of a soul that can be cured in the after-life because of his lack of might and in The Republic as one who chooses to be reborn as a non-human ape, in the Alexander Romance, Alexander the Great supposedly addresses Homer thus: “I would sooner be a Thersites in Homer than an Agamemnon in your writing.” Making an appearance as a fool-type figure in Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida, as well as in Goethe’s Faust, the multi-faceted nature of his character absorbed the philosopher Hegel in his Lectures on the Philosophy of History:

"The Thersites of Homer who abuses the kings is a standing figure for all times. He does not get in every age . . . the blows that he gets in Homer. But his envy, his egotism, is the thorn which he has to carry in his flesh. And the undying worm that gnaws him is the tormenting consideration that his excellent views and vituperations remain absolutely without result in the world.”

The assault on Thersites highlights the hierarchy and abuse of power prevalent among the Greek warriors in the Iliad, where the physically weaker and socially marginalized are treated as objects of ridicule and violence. Whether truly the “first conscientious objector,” as he was characterised by Floyd Dell in his 1914 article ‘Homer and The Soapbox’, printed in the socialist US magazine ‘The Masses,’ or the harbinger of a future revolution, as he is portrayed in Philip Davies 1938 play “Trojan Incident,’ where he declaims: “All we are to you is so many bodies to heap up to the glory of Greece. In the name of a whore that no decent man would allow under his roof. … We have pulled down cities at your orders. We have murdered and plundered, we have died and rotted for you. But your men will not always be blind,” Thersites endures as a powerful literary motif for the dispossessed, the reviled and the dissenting, as well as a cautionary tale for the fate of satirists and those with unbridled tongues at the hands of  the perennially insecure in power.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 22 July 2023