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Odysseus as an alternative model of leader

By Elodie Paillard


Honorary Associate, Department of Classics and Ancient History,

The University of Sydney

Swiss National Science Foundation ‘Ambizione’ Project Leader,

University of Basel


The Ancient Greek world was populated with figures of leaders, be they mythological (as Ajax, Agamemnon, Achilles, for example) or historical (as Pericles or Alexander the Great). All of them possessed common characteristics: they were from an aristocratic and wealthy lineage, were usually great war leaders (or tactical statesmen), and illustrated themselves by their ability at thriving in a highly competitive environment (military and/or political).


Beside these ‘great men’, we find Odysseus, the hero of the Odyssey. While he is no doubt a very famous legendary figure, endowed with an extraordinary ability at surviving in difficult situations and a versatility that allowed him to save himself from tricky circumstances, he is never quite described as a leader similar to Ajax, or Achilles.


Already in the ‘Homeric’ poems, it is made clear that he lacks the proper characteristics to be one of the great warriors: his lineage is not as noble as, for example, Agamemnon, he is not as good-looking as other prominent heroes are, he is not a first-class fighter, and rather uses his cunning mind and linguistic abilities than any physical strength to reach his goals. Moreover, he does not conform to the usual ‘heroic code’, refusing, for example, to boat over enemies (and going so far as preferring to remain anonymous after his victory over the dreadful Cyclops). Odysseus is, in one sense, the anti-hero.





As for his possible leadership qualities, things become clearer in the way he is staged in two of Sophocles’ plays: Ajax and Philoctetes. It has often been argued that in Ajax, Odysseus has a positive role because he manages to convince, at the end, Agamemnon and Menelaus that Ajax’s body must receive a proper funeral despite his earlier intentions to kill the two leaders of the Greek army. On the contrary, in Philoctetes, scholars have long seen in the character of Odysseus a ruthless and amoral sophist, who also seems to put all his efforts into corrupting the young Neoptolemus.


However, as I have demonstrated in my book on non-élite characters in Sophoclean tragedy, Odysseus defends the same values in these two plays, and those values represent a clear alternative model of leadership (see my book, The Stage and the City: Non-Elite Characters in the Tragedies of Sophocles). Whereas the usual model of a leader that we encounter in Ancient Greek literature exhibit values such as competitiveness, a belief in the superiority of aristocratic birth, a form of heroic ideal, the use of unrestrained physical violence, Odysseus promotes markedly different values. In both plays, he works towards a more cooperative way of handling difficult situations, by putting the good of all the community above any restricted individual interest. He consistently refuses to use any form of physical violence. He argues for a new definition of what must be encompassed under the concept of ‘nobility’: for Odysseus, someone who is ‘noble’ is not someone who comes from a good family or a privileged background, but someone who is able to raise above the interests of a restricted number of aristocrats/wealthy people in order to prove useful to the whole community.


Of course, those new values, and this alternative model of leadership embodied in the figure of Odysseus in Sophocles’ tragedies resonated with fifth-century democratic values, where an increasing number of non-élite, non-aristocratic citizens became able to take part in the political leadership of their city (https://www.jstor.org/stable/4424258). Yet, the alternative model of leadership promoted by Odysseus could very well still be relevant in today’s society: it is still worth studying the alternative leaders of the past!


Twitter: @elopai

Latest book: The Stage and the City: Non-Elite Characters in the Tragedies of Sophocles, Chorégie, 3. Paris: Éditions de Boccard, 2017.


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