The Muses Against Thersites? Ideology in Book II of the Iliad

Abstract

The “Invocation to the Muses” of Book II of the Iliad sets an excludent approach for the long list about to be presented. My aim here is to argue that this exclusion lines up not only with the Homeric aristocratic ideology, but also, and mainly, with its solid defense displayed at the first part of Book II, during the brief crisis raised by Thersites, which confirms the power of the áristoi. Similarly, I will try to show that, despite this ideology, the dramatic tensions attached to the leaders in the Iliad allow the passage to be read in its reception as a portrait of the problems caused by central power and as a vehicle of counter-ideologies that promote popular intervention.