The Margites (grc|Μαργίτης) is a comic mock-epic ascribed to Homer[1] that is largely lost. From references to the work that survived, it is known that its central character is an exceedingly stupid man named Margites (from ancient Greek Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: μάργος, margos, "raving, mad; lustful"), who was so dense he did not know which parent had given birth to him.[2] His name gave rise to the recherché adjective margitomanēs (Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: μαργιτομανής), "mad as Margites", used by Philodemus.[3]
It was commonly attributed to Homer, as by Aristotle (Poetics 13.92): "His Margites indeed provides an analogy: as are the Iliad and Odyssey to our tragedies, so is the Margites to our comedies"; but the work, among a mixed genre of works loosely labelled "Homerica" in antiquity, was attributed to Pigres, a Greek poet of Halicarnassus, in the massive medieval Greek encyclopaedia called the Suda. Harpocration also writes that it is attributed to Homer.[4] Basil of Caesarea writes that the work is attributed to Homer but he states that he is unsure regarding this attribution.[5]
It is written in mixed hexameter and iambic lines, an oddity characteristic also of the Batrachomyomachia (likewise attributed to Pigres), which inserts a pentameter line after each hexameter of the Iliad as a curious literary game.[6]
Margites was famous in the ancient world, but only the following lines survive:[7] [8]
Due to the Margites character, the Greeks used the word as an insult to describe foolish and useless people.[9] Demosthenes called Alexander the Great Margites in order to insult and degrade him.[10] [11] [12]