So, thanks to the work of Shahryar I have managed to get ahold of a digital copy of The Logos of Odysseus. I have deliberately avoided as many spoilers about this, and literary analyses, to better understand the piece without the gilding of ages. So, first of all, a HUGE thank you to Shahryar for the hard work, and link to a Thesis which contained Antisthenes work in toto. It's much appreciated and this essay is my way of doing a bit of homework on the piece. I'll try to keep it as much in plain and honest reactions as possible.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TX5FgDJnyN8]

For those interested in the original pieces, they are in the appendix of this Thesis paper.
https://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/2123/16595/1/Kennedy_WJ_Thesis...
Starting on Page 325 for this piece.

First off, the entire piece is a part of a group of speeches from veterans of the Trojan War, speaking to an assembly, presumably of the other heroes of the war. The tone of the two surviving pieces, the speeches of Ajax and Odysseus, paint a picture of men extremely familiar to our modern eye, in the caricatures of combat veterans.

Odysseus points out that the actions that he undertook were for the sole purpose of ending the war. He points out many times that his actions, while not considered honorable, had the net effect of ending the war faster and more decisively. He reproaches the others for benefiting from his actions, and reproaching them.

For it was not to fight against the Trojans that
we came here, but to recover Helen and capture Troy.

Odysseus also calls into sharp relief the desire for fame and glory of the other heroes of the Trojan War. He even mocks their obsession with Armor and weapons, which I find particularly humorous, considering that our MIC still has not learned this lesson. Another rather amusing but subtle point he makes is that the people are not protected by a strong military, rather the soldier is protected by a strong military.

Do you think there is any difference between bearing such arms
and being ensconced within a city-wall? For you alone there is no wall – so you say. Yet
in fact it is you alone who go around with a seven-ox-hide wall wrapped around yourself.

In addition, Odysseus speaks very sternly about the need for first hand knowledge of a situation. He quite obviously has a great deal of distaste for those who rely upon merely the word of others.

I know what is going on here and among the enemy, and not because I send another spying

Finally, Odysseus speaks about the differences between bravery and stupidity. There really is no need for me to restate his position, as it's much better worded than I would put it.

Are you ignorant that cleverness and bravery in battle is not the same thing as being strong? Stupidity is the greatest evil to those who have it.

Reading over this piece again, just pointing out the most interesting bits feels a bit cheap, to be honest. It's really meant to be performed, and this speech practically screams tired and bitter veteran who just wants to go the fuck home. It's really a shame that much of Antisthenes work has not survived. Just from the Logos of Ajax and Odysseus, it seems that this could have been part of an epic performance, and that thought is strangely appealing.

I admit that I'm being a bit speculative at this point, but I truly feel that this piece may have been the Greek equivalent of an anti-war expose. Antisthenes puts far too much feeling of betrayal, anger and exasperation into the speech for it to be anything but a paraphrasing of something he heard during his own war. The use of older wars to tell current war stories is nothing new in the modern day, and it's not inconceivable that a Greek veteran might not want to have the city leaders pissed at him more than they already were.

Laertius in particular mentions only that his "Works are Preserved in Ten Volumes" Which he never elucidates on further, save to name the various titles. Since this means that these may have been the only ones that saw wide dissemination, and in addition, considering that Laertius was writing 500 years later, It means even he was working from third or fourth hand information from the start.

The fact that much has not survived suggests that it may have hit a bit close to home for somebody powerful. The only two that survived were of course tied to EXTREMELY popular characters in the Iliad, and as a result would suggest that they were part of the current "Fan Canon" as it were. Considering the state of Greek Drama at the time, a satirical play could easily be mistaken for simple rhetoric years later, especially if it was a piece that was repeatedly performed due to its power.

However, I can't help but think that a man who lectured at a gym specifically for outcasts from society may have had his heart in the right place. At least, I see enough of my own demons in his work that I cannot simply accept the words of "Older and Wiser" heads on his irrelevance.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiE5-II0v7w]