Ajax
(Αἴας).
1. A son of Telamon, king of Salamis, by Periboea or Eriboea (Apollod. 3.12.7; Paus. 1.42.4; Pind. I. 6.65; Diod. 4.72), and a grandson of Aeacus. Homer calls him Ajax the Telamonian, Ajax the Great, or simply Ajax (Il. 2.768, 9.169, 14.410; comp. Pind. I. 6.38), whereas the other Ajax, the son of Oileus, is always distinguished from the former by some epithet. According to Homer Ajax joined the expedition of the Greeks against Troy, with his Salaminians, in twelve ships (Il. 2.557; comp. Strab. ix. p.394), and was next to Achilles the most distinguished and the bravest among the Greeks. (ii 768, 17.279, &c.) He is described as tall of stature, and his head and broad shoulders as rising above those of all the Greeks (iii 226, &c.); in beauty he was inferior to none but Achilles. (Od. 11.550, 24.17; comp. Paus. 1.35.3.) When Hector challenged the bravest of the Greeks to single combat, Ajax came forward among several others. The people prayed that he might fight, and when the lot fell to Ajax (Il. 7.179, &c.), and he approached, Hector himself began to tremble. (215.) He wounded Hector and dashed him to the ground by a huge stone. The combatants were separated, and upon parting they exchanged arms with one another as a token of mutual esteem. (305, &c.) Ajax was also one of the ambassadors whom Agamemnon sent to conciliate Achilles. (9.169.) He fought several times besides with Hector, as in the battle near the ships of the Greeks (14.409, &c. 15.415, 16.114), and in protecting the body of Patroclus. (17.128, 732.) In the games at the funeral pile of Patroclus, Ajax fought with Odysseus, but without gaining any decided advantage over him (23.720, &c.), and in like manner with Diomedes. In the contest about the armour of Achilles, he was conquered by Odysseus, and this, says Homer, became the cause of his death. (Od. 11.541, &c.) Odysseus afterwards met his spirit in Hades, and endeavoured to appease it, but in vain.
Thus far the story of Ajax, the Telamonian, is related in the Homeric poems. Later writers furnish us with various other traditions about his youth, but more especially about his death, which is so vaguely alluded to by Homer. According to Apollodorus (3.12.7) and Pindar (Pind. I. 6.51, &c.), Ajax became invulnerable in consequence of a prayer which Heracles offered to Zeus, while he was on a visit in Salamis. The child was called Αἴας from ἀετός, an eagle, which appeared immediately after the prayer as a favourable omen. According to Lycophron (455 with the Schol.), Ajax was born before Heracles came to Telamon, and the hero made the child invulnerable by wrapping him up in his lion's skin. (Comp. Schol. ad Il. 23.841.) Ajax is also mentioned among the suitors of Helen. (Apollod. 3.10.8; Hyg. Fab. 81.) During the war against Troy, Ajax, like Achilles, made excursions into neighbouring countries. The first of them was to the Thracian Chersonesus, where he took Polydorus, the son of Priam, who had been entrusted to the care of king Polymnestor, together with rich booty. Thence, he went into Phrygia, slew king Teuthras, or Teleutas, in single combat, and carried off great spoils, and Tecmessa, the king's daughter, who became his mistress. (Dict. Cret. 2.18; Soph. Aj. 210, 480, &c.; Hor. Carm. 2.4.5.) In the contest about the armour of Achilles, Agamemnon, on the advice of Athena, awarded the prize to Odysseus. This discomfiture threw Ajax into an awful state of madness. In the night he rushed from his tent, attacked the sheep of the Greek army, made great havoc among them, and dragged dead and living animals into his tent, fancying that they were his enemies. When, in the morning, he recovered his senses and beheld what he had done, shame and despair led him to destroy himself with the sword which Hector had once given him as a present. (Pind. N. 7.36; Soph. Aj. 42, 277, 852; Ov. Met. 13.1, &c.; Lycophr. l.c.) Less poetical traditions make Ajax die by the hands of others. (Dict. Cret. 5.15; Dar. Phryg. 35, and the Greek argument to Soph. Ajax.) His step-brother Teucrus was charged by Telamon with the murder of Ajax, but succeeded in clearing himself from the accusation. (Paus. 1.28.12.) A tradition mentioned by Pausanias (1.35.3; comp. Ov. Met. 13.397, &c.) states, that from his blood there sprang up a purple flower which bore the letters αἰ on its leaves, which were at once the initials of his name and expressive of a sigh. According to Dictys, Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, deposited the ashes of the hero in a golden urn on mount Rhoeteion ; and according to Sophocles, he was buried by his brother Teucrus against the will of the Atreidae. (Comp. Q. Smyrn. 5.500; Philostr. Her. 11.3.) Pausanias (3.19.11) represents Ajax, like many other heroes, as living after his death in the island of Leuce. It is said that when, in the time of the emperor Hadrian, the sea had washed open the grave of Ajax, bones of superhuman size were found in it, which the emperor, however, ordered to be buried again. (Philostr. Her. 1.2 ; Paus. 3.39.11.) Respecting the state and wandering of his soul after his death, see Plato, De Re Publ. x. in fin.; Plut. Sympos. 9.5.
Ajax was worshipped in Salamis as the tutelary hero of the island, and had a temple with a statue there, and was honoured with a festival, Αἰαντεῖα. (Dict. of Ant. s. v.) At Athens too he was worshipped, and was one of the eponymic heroes, one of the Attic tribes (Aeantis) being called after him. (Paus. 1.35.2; Plut. Sympos. 1.10.) Not far from the town Rhoeteion, on the promontory of the same name, there was likewise a sanctuary of Ajax, with a beautiful statue, which Antonius sent to Egypt, but which was restored to its original place by Augustus. (Strab. xiii. p.595.) According to Dictys Cretensis (5.16) the wife of Ajax was Glauca, by whom she had a son, Aeantides; by his beloved Tecmessa, he had a son, Eurysaces. (Soph. Aj. 333.) Several illustrious Athenians of the historical times, such as Miltiades, Cimon, and Alcibiades, traced their pedigree to the Telamonian Ajax. (Paus. 2.29.4; Plut. Alc. 1.) The traditions about this hero furnished plentiful materials, not only for poets, but also for sculptors and painters. His single combat with Hector was represented on the chest of Cypselus (Paus. 5.19.1); his statue formed a part of a large group at Olympia, the work of Lycius. (Paus. 5.22.2; comp. Plin. Nat. 35.10.36 ; Aelian, Ael. VH 9.11.) A beautiful sculptured head, which is generally believed to be a head of Ajax, is still extant in the Egremont collection at Petworth. (Böttiger, Amalthea, iii. p. 258.)
2. The son of Oileus, king of the Locrians, who is also called the Lesser Ajax. (Hom. Il. 2.527.) His mother's name was Eriopis. According to Strabo (ix. p.425) his birthplace was Naryx in Locris, whence Ovid (Ov. Met. 14.468) calls him Narycius heros. According to the Iliad (2.527, &c.) he led his Locrians in forty ships (Hyg. Fab. 97, says twenty) against Troy. He is described as one of the great heroes among the Greeks, and acts frequently in conjunction with the Telamonian Ajax. He is small of stature and wears a linen cuirass (λινοθώρηξ), but is brave and intrepid, especially skilled in throwing the spear, and, next to Achilles, the most swift-footed among all the Greeks. (Il. 14.520, &c., 23.789, &c.) His principal exploits during the siege of Troy are mentioned in the following passages: 13.700, &c., 14.520, &c., 16.350, 17.256, 732, &c. In the funeral games at the pyre of Patroclus he contended with Odysseus and Antilochus for the prize in the footrace; but Athena, who was hostile towards him and favoured Odysseus, made him stumble and fall, so that he gained only the second prize. (23.754, &c.) On his return from Troy his vessel was wrecked on the Whirling Rocks (Γυραὶ πέτραι), but he himself escaped upon a rock through the assistance of Poseidon, and would have been saved in spite of Athena, but he used presumptuous words, and said that he would escape the dangers of the sea in defiance of the immortals. Hereupon Poseidon split the rock with his trident, and Ajax was swallowed up by the sea. (Od. 4.499, &c.)
In later traditions this Ajax is called a son of Oileus and the nymph Rhene, and is also mentioned among the suitors of Helen. (Hyg. Fab. 81, 97; Apollod. 3.10.8.) According to a tradition in Philostratus (Her. 3.1), Ajax had a tame dragon, five cubits in length, which followed him everywhere like a dog. After the taking of Troy, it is said, he rushed into the temple of Athena, where Cassandra had taken refuge, and was embracing the statue of the goddess as a suppliant. Ajax dragged her away with violence and led her to the other captives. (Verg. A. 2.403 ; Eur. Tro. 70, &c.; Dict. Cret. 5.12; Hyg. Fab. 116.) According to some statements he even violated Cassandra in the temple of the goddess (Tryphiod. 635; Q. Smyrn. 13.422 ; Lycophr. 360, with the Schol.); Odysseus at least accused him of this crime, and Ajax was to be stoned to death, but saved himself by establishing his innocence by an oath. (Paus. 10.26.1, 31.1.) The whole charge, is on the other hand, said to have been an invention of Agamemnon, who wanted to have Cassandra for himself. But whether true or not, Athena had sufficient reason for being indignant, as Ajax had dragged a suppliant from her temple. When on his voyage homeward he came to the Capharean rocks on the coast of Euboea, his ship was wrecked in a storm, he himself was killed by Athena with a flash of lightning, and his body was washed upon the rocks, which henceforth were called the rocks of Ajax. (Hyg. Fab. 116; comp. Verg. A. 1.40, &c., 11.260.) For a different account of his death see Philostr. Her. 8.3, and Schol. ad Lycophr. l.c. After his death his spirit dwelled in the island of Leuce. (Paus. 3.19.11.) The Opuntian Locrians worshipped Ajax as their national hero, and so great was their faith in him, that when they drew up their army in battle array, they always left one place open for him, believing that, although invisible to them, he was fighting for and among them. (Paus. l.c.; Conon. Narrat. 18.) The story of Ajax was frequently made use of by ancient poets and artists, and the hero who appears on some Locrian coins with the helmet, shield, and sword, is probably Ajax the son of Oileus. (Mionnet, No. 570, &c.) [L.S]
- Cleisthenes names tribe after: Hdt. 5.66
- Miltiades traces his ancestory to: Hdt. 6.35
- Prayed to as hero: Hdt. 8.64
- First fruits of battle dedicated to: Hdt. 8.121
- son of Telamon, suitor of Helen: Apollod. 3.10.7, Apollod. 3.10.8
- named after an eagle: Apollod. 3.12.7
- succeeds Alcathous as king of Megara: Paus. 1.42.4
- remains in private station: Paus. 2.29.4
- leader of the Salaminians against Troy: Apollod. E.3.11
- fights Hector: Apollod. E.4.1, Paus. 5.19.2, and Deiphobus: Paus. 5.22.2
- kills Caletor: Paus. 10.14.2
- sent as ambassador to Achilles: Apollod. E.4.1
- retreats: Apollod. E.4.4
- rescues the body of Patroclus: Apollod. E.4.4
- victor in wrestling: Apollod. E.4.7
- kills Glaucus: Apollod. E.5.3
- carries off the dead body of Achilles: Apollod. E.5.3
- victor in the quoits match: Apollod. E.5.5
- contends for the arms of Achilles: Apollod. E.5.6
- goes mad and kills himself: Apollod. E.5.6
- his dead body not allowed to be burnt, is buried in a coffin at Rhoeteum: Apollod. E.5.6
- Teucer not guilty of his death: Paus. 1.28.11
- temple, image, and worship in Salamis: Paus. 1.35.3
- flower: Paus. 1.35.4
- grave: Paus. 1.35.4, 5
- huge bones: Paus. 1.35.5
- in White Isle: Paus. 3.19.13
- painted by Polygnotus: Paus. 10.31.1
- eponymous hero of Athenian tribe: Paus. 1.5.2
- suitor of Helen: Apollod. 3.10.7
- leader of the Locrians against Troy: Apollod. E.3.11
- violates Cassandra: Apollod. E.5.22, Paus. 1.15.2, Paus. 5.11.6, Paus. 5.19.5, Paus. 10.26.3, Paus. 10.31.2
- Athena angry at his impiety: Apollod. E.5.23
- bears Odysseus a grudge: Paus. 10.31.2
- wrecked and drowned: Apollod. E.6.4
- buried by Thetis in Myconos: Apollod. E.6.4
- invoked by Italian Locrians to aid them in battle: Paus. 3.19.12
- in White Isle: Paus. 3.19.13