Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Thersites.
The gallery
Thersites Accosts Achilles
Henry Courtney Selous, 1886
Selous' Victorian illustration for Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida: the deformed railer Thersites confronts Achilles — the Iliad's insolent voice from the ranks reinvented as the play's bitter fool.
Odysseus Beats Thersites (Iliad Book II, Pope edition)
Unknown (illustrator of Pope's Iliad), 18th–19th century edition plate
Plate from an illustrated Pope Iliad: in the assembly of Book II, Odysseus strikes Thersites with Agamemnon's sceptre — the epic's rare punishment of a common soldier for mocking kings.
Achilles Strikes Thersites (Roman sarcophagus relief)
Unknown (Roman sculptor), Roman Imperial
Detail of a sarcophagus in the Antalya Museum: Achilles kills Thersites for mocking his grief over Penthesilea — the Cyclic sequel to the Iliad, carved in marble for a Roman tomb.