Thersites
mythological figure · 4 works · 6 mentions · 8 anchored passages
the buffoon Thersites
in the texts
Orations
The buffoonish figure from the Iliad, cited as a negative model for pursuing laughter rather than genuine worth.
for Homer has said that he came among all the Greeks as a buffoon — but because he seemed laughable to the Argives.
The one only of all whom he reviled, Thersites, even him he says was a clear-voiced speaker.
the man cheap of countenance who wishes to be thought handsome, by Thersites.
Against Ctesiphon
Homeric figure used as a cowardly and slanderous comparison for Demosthenes.
If any one of the tragic poets who are to bring on their plays after the crowning should in a tragedy represent Thersites as crowned by the Greeks, no one of you would tolerate it, for Homer says he was a coward and a slanderer;
Iliad
The ugliest and most abusive of the common soldiers, who publicly rails against Agamemnon and is beaten into silence by Odysseus.
The rest now took their seats and kept to their own several places, but Thersites still went on wagging his unbridled tongue - a man of many words, and those unseemly;
" Thus railed Thersites, but Odysseus at once went up to him and rebuked him sternly.
Achilles and Odysseus hated him worst of all, for it was with them that he was most wont to wrangle;