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 Mahābhārata, 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.