ABSTRACT
In the Iliad, Thersites is the only low-born character among the Greeks who are portrayed; though he was subsequently given a noble pedigree and identified as the son of Oeneus’ brother Agrius. Homer describes him as physically repulsive: lame, bandylegged, round-shouldered, and almost bald, with an egg-shaped head. He had an unbridled tongue and loved to mock the leaders. When he upbraided Agamemnon for stealing Briseis from Achilles, and suggested that the army should return home to Greece, Odysseus beat him over the back with his staff for his impudence. In later Greek literature it was said that, when he mocked Achilles for falling in love with the dead body of the Amazon queen Penthesilea, he was struck dead by the hero. Achilles therefore had to go to Lesbos to be purified of the murder. There he sacrificed to Leto and her children Apollo and Artemis, and Odysseus performed the required ritual.
