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Ajax ( Greek: Aîas), a Greek hero, son of Oileus the king of Locris, called the "lesser" or Locrian Ajax, to distinguish him from Ajax, son of Telamon. He was the leader of the Locrian contingent during the Trojan War. He is a significant figure in the Iliad and is mentioned in the Odyssey. Homer gives a favorable description of him as a warrior. In spite of his small stature, he held his own amongst the other heroes before Troy; he was brave, next to Achilles in swiftness of foot and famous for throwing the spear. But he was boastful, arrogant and quarrelsome; like the Telamonian Ajax, he was the enemy of Odysseus, and in the end the victim of the vengeance of Athene, who wrecked his ship on his homeward voyage ( Odyssey, iv. 499).
A later story gives a more definite account of the offense of which he was guilty. It is said that, after the fall of Troy, he dragged Cassandra away by force from the statue of the goddess at which she had taken refuge as a suppliant, and raped her ( Lycophron, 360, Quintus SmyrnaeusQuintus Smyrnaeus Greek epic poet, probably flourished in the latter part of the 4th century AD. He is sometimes called Quintus Calaber because the only manuscript of his poem was discovered at Otranto in Calabria by Cardinal Bessarion in 1450. According xiii. 422). For this, his ship was wrecked in a storm on the coast of EuboeaEuboea or Negropont is the largest island of the Greek archipelago. It is separated from the mainland of Greece by the Euboic Sea. In general outline it is long and narrow; it is about 90 miles long, and varies in breadth from 30 miles to 4. Its general d, and he himself was struck by lightning ( VirgilFor other uses see Virgil (disambiguation). Publius Vergilius Maro ( October 15, 70 19 BC) known in English as Virgil or Vergil Latin poet, is the author of the Eclogues the Georgics and the Aeneid this last being a narrative poem in twelve books that is, AeneidThe Aeneid is a Latin epic written by Virgil in the 1st century BC that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who traveled to Italy where he became the ancestor of the Romans. Form and Tradition The Aeneid is an epic poem of twelve books, in consc I. 40).
He was said to have lived after his death in the island of Leuke . He was worshipped as a national hero by the Opuntian Locrians (on whose coins he appears), who always left a vacant place for him in the ranks of their army when drawn up in battle array. He was the subject of a lost tragedy by SophoclesSophocles ( 4961— 406 BC; Greek: Sigma;οφοκλη&sigmaf was an ancient Greek playwright, dramatist, priest, and politician of Athens. He is known as the second of the three great Greek tragedians; Sophocles was 30 years y. The rape of Cassandra by Ajax was frequently represented in GreekAncient Greece is the term used to describe the Greek-speaking world in ancient times. It refers not only to the territory of the present Greek state, but also to those areas settled in ancient times by Greeks: Cyprus, the Aegean coast of Turkey (then kno works of art, for instance on the chest of CypselusCypselus (or Kypselos was the first tyrant of Corinth, Greece in the 7th century BC. With increased wealth and more complicated trade relations and social structures, Greek city-states tended to overthrow their traditional hereditary priest-kings; Corinth described by PausaniasPausanias was Greek traveller and geographer of the 2nd century A. who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, (v. 17) and in extant works.
Ajax the lesser was the father of Eurysaces by Tecmessa.
This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. 1911 Britannica
People who fought in the Trojan War
