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"I am newly aware that an
enemy is to be hated only as far as suits one who
will in turn become a friend. Similarly to a friend
I would wish to give only so much help and service
as suits him who will not forever remain friendly."
[Ajax 1. Sophocles,
Ajax
680]
"...to no man would great
Telamonian Ajax yield, to any man that is mortal,
and eats the grain of Demeter, and may be cloven with the bronze
or crushed with great stones. Nay, not even to
Achilles, breaker of the ranks of men,
would he give way, in close fight at least; but in
fleetness of foot may no man vie with
Achilles." [Idomeneus 1 to Meriones.
Iliad 13.320]
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Ajax 1 was one of the
SUITORS OF HELEN,
and prominent among the
ACHAEAN LEADERS,
second only to
Achilles. He was son of
Telamon, and therefore called "Telamonian", and
also "great", to distinguish him from the other
Ajax (Ajax 2), the
"little", the Locrian, the son of Oileus 1. Ajax 1
was sturdy and broad-shouldered, bigger than anyone
in the Achaean host. That is why King
Priam 1, seeing him from
the walls of Troy, asked
Helen:
"Who then is
this other Achaean warrior, valiant and tall,
towering above the Argives with his head and broad
shoulders?" [Iliad 3.225]
And he was a handsome man too, for it is said
that "... in comeliness and
in deeds of war [Ajax]
was above all the other Danaans next to the
peerless son of Peleus" [Iliad 17.279],
words which also
Odysseus confirms when
he meets him in the
Underworld
[Odyssey 11.550].
Ajax 1 used to fight in a team with the "little"
Ajax, or with his brother
Teucer 1, the best archer in the Achaean army who
used to take his stand beneath his shield
(Iliad 8.266). The shield Ajax 1 used in
batlle ("a shield of bronze
with sevenfold
bull's-hide"—Il.7.220) had been
made by Tychius, a man from Hyle (Boeotia). He had
used seven hides of bulls, and thereover had
wrought an eighth layer of bronze. It was an
excellent weapon. However, he lost his mind when he
could not get the weapons of
Achilles. And then
again, even the enemy regarded him as a great man
both in stature and wisdom:
"Ajax, seeing
God gave thee stature and might, aye, and wisdom,
and with thy spear thou art pre-eminent above all
the Achaeans, let us now cease from battle and
strife for this day; hereafter shall we fight again
until God judge between us, and give victory to one
side or the other."
[Hector 1 to Ajax
1. Iliad 7.288]
He died by his own hand before the fall of
Troy, and kept resentment
even after death.
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Omen
As Heracles 1
feasted with his friend Telamon, king of Salamis
(the island off the coast of Attica in the Saronic
Gulf), he prayed to Zeus
that Telamon may have a brave son, and having thus
spoken an eagle (aietós) appeared. Later, a
child was born, being named Ajax (Aías)
after the bird, as
Heracles 1 had
suggested:
"Telamon, you
will have the son that you ask for. Name him after
the bird that appeared: wide-ruling Aias, awesome
in the war-toils of the people."
[Pin.Isth.6.51]
Heracles 1 also prayed for invulnerability
("May he have a body as
invulnerable as this skin that is now wrapped
around me..."). In vain, for Ajax 1 did die.
But his strength became proverbial:
"For I was
well aware that he was more proof against money on
every side than Ajax against a spear."
[Plato, Symposium 219 E]
Still, Plato's translator (W.R.M. Lamb) believes
those words speak of the shield and not of Ajax
himself. He refers to Pindar 5.45 (who, however,
refers to the man's invulnerability), and to
Sophocles' Ajax 576, where Ajax 1 gives the
shield to his son and indeed calls it "spear-proof". Later myths
(see Roscher, Lex. 1.122) tended to regard
Ajax as invulnerable in certain parts of the body
(shoulder, hip, collar bone). But during a fight
between Ajax 1 and
Diomedes 2, the
Achaeans feared for the life of Ajax 1 as "...Tydeus' son over the great shield sought
ever to reach the neck with the point of his
shining spearware." (Iliad 23.820)
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Leader against
Troy
As a young man Ajax 1 is found among the
SUITORS OF HELEN.
So he was bound by the Oath of
Tyndareus, a defence
pact that forced the whole of Hellas to go to war.
When the time came to sail against
Troy, Ajax 1 became (along
with his half brother, the bastard son of Telamon,
Teucer 1) Leader of the Salaminians, and
contributed with 12 ships to the Achaean fleet [see
ACHAEAN LEADERS,
to compare with other contributions]. Teucer 1 was
the son of Telamon by
Hesione 2, a Trojan
princess captured by Telamon and
Heracles 1 during
their own expedition against
Troy (years before the
Trojan War).
During the initial phase of the war Ajax 1
sacked the city of King Teleutas, where he captured
the latter's daughter, turning her into his own
wife after killing her father (Dictys 2.18), or, as
she prefers to say:
"I was the
daughter of a free-born father mighty in wealth, if
any Phrygian was. Now I am a slave, for somehow the
gods so ordained..." [Sophocles Ajax
486]
This was follow by other campaigns of Ajax 1 in
Phrygia (Dictys 2.41), some of them in conjunction
with Neoptolemus,
"who honored him in place of
his father" (4.17).
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Slain by Ajax 1
During the war Ajax 1 killed many warriors,
among which:
Acamas 2 (Hom.Il.6.5ff.), a Thracian son
of Eusorus, in whose shape Ares had previously
exhorted the Trojans.
Aganippus (QS.3.230).
Agelaus 11, son of Maeon 3 (QS.3.229).
Agestratus (QS.3.230).
Amphius 2, the rich owner of cornfields, whom Fate
made serve as an ally to
Priam 1
(Hom.Il.5.612).
Archelochus, a Dardanian leader serving in the same
company as Aeneas and
Acamas 3. He was son of
Antenor 1
(Hom.Il.5.70, 12.100, 14.465ff.;
Apd.Ep.3.34ff.).
Caletor 2, the son of Clytius 5, one of the Elders
of Troy and son of King
Laomedon 1. (Hom.Il.15.419).
Deiochus 2 (QS.1.529ff.).
Doryclus 1, son of Priam
1 (Apd.3.12.5; Hyg.Fab.90;
Hom.Il.11.489).
Enyeus 2 (QS.1.529ff.).
Epicles, a comrade of Sarpedon 1, the king of Lycia
(Hom.Il.12.379).
Erymas 4 (QS.3.231).
Eurynomus 6 (QS.1.529ff.).
Glaucus 3, the Lycian leader, remembered for having
exchanged his golden armour for that of
Diomedes 2, which was
made of bronze (Hom.Il.6.232;
Apd.Ep.3.34ff.; QS.3.278; Hdt.1.147).
Hippothous 5, the Pelasgian leader
(Apd.Ep.3.34ff, Hom.Il.2.840,
17.288ff.).
Hyllus 5 (QS.1.529ff.).
Hyrtius, leader of the Mysians and son of Gyrtius
(Hom.Il.14.511ff.).
Laodamas 3, son of Antenor
1 (Hom.Il.15.516).
Lysander (Hom.Il.11.491).
Nessus 3 (QS.3.231).
Ocythous 2 (QS.3.230).
Pandocus (Hom.Il.11.490).
Phorcys 1, a Phrygian leader
(Apd.Ep.3.34ff.;
Hom.Il.17.312ff.).
Pylartes 1 (Hom.Il.11.491).
Pyrasus (Hom.Il.11.491).
Simoisius, son of Anthemion
(Hom.Il.4.473).
Thestor 2 (QS.3.229).
Zorus (QS.3.231).
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Single combat
In the 10th year of the
Trojan War, Ajax 1
fought in single combat against
Hector 1 until the
heralds parted them. The warriors, then, exchanged
gifts: Hector 1 gave him
his sword, and Ajax 1 gave
Hector 1 his belt. He
would later lament:
"Ever since I
took into my hand this gift from Hector, my
greatest enemy, I have gotten no good from the
Greeks. Yes, men's proverb is true: the gifts of
enemies are no gifts and bring no good."
[Ajax 1. Sophocles,
Ajax
660]
This proved to be so because Ajax 1 gave
Hector 1 the belt by
which he was dragged by
Achilles, and
Hector 1 gave Ajax 1 the
sword with which he killed himself.
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Embassy
Ajax 1 was part of the embassy (the others being
Phoenix 2 and
Odysseus), which
attempted to persuade
Achilles to rejoin the
fight (Iliad 9.169ff.). And when he noticed
they had failed in their purpose, he told
Odysseus:
"Zeus-born son of Laertes,
Odysseus of many wiles, let us go our way,
for the fulfillment of the charge laid on us will
not methinks be brought to pass by our coming
hither..." [Iliad 9.624ff.].
and reproached
Achilles:
"... a man
accepts recompense from the slayer of his brother,
or for his dead son; and the slayer abides in his
own land for the paying of a great price, and the
kinsman's heart and proud spirit are restrained by
the taking of recompense. But as for thee, the gods
have put in thy breast a heart that is obdurate and
evil by reason of one only girl..."
However eloquent his words,
Achilles turned down
the gifts that the embassy had offered on behalf of
Agamemnon, and refused
to return to battle until his friend
Patroclus 1 was
killed by Hector 1. Then
a fierce fight for the corpse of
Patroclus 1 ensued,
being Ajax 1 who rescued the body.
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Ruin
Some believe that the root of Ajax 1's ruin is
to be found in his hybris, his disregard of
the gods. For this is what a messenger tells us in
Sophocles' Ajax 762ff.:
"And Ajax,
even at the time he first set out from home, showed
himself foolish, when his father advised him well.
For Telamon told him, 'My son, seek victory in
arms, but always seek it with the help of god.'
Then with a tall boast and foolishly he replied,
'Father, with the help of the gods even a worthless
man might achieve victory; but I, even without that
help, fully trust to bring that glory within my
grasp.' So much he boasted."
When Achilles was
killed, a fight took place for the corpse. Ajax 1
killed the Lycian Glaucus 3, and gave
Achilles' arms to be
taken to the ships, while he, under a shower of
darts, carried the body, while being covered by
Odysseus, who fought
his assailants.
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The end
Achilles being dead,
his arms were offered as a prize to the bravest,
and Ajax 1 and Odysseus
competed for them.
Odysseus was preferred
by the judges, and as a revenge, Ajax 1 planned an
attack on the army. But
Athena drove him mad, and
he slaughtered the cattle with the herdsmen, taking
them for the Achaeans. And when he came to his
senses, he slew himself by letting himself fall
upon his sword (the sword he had received from
Hector 1).
Dictys says that contention arose between
Ajax 1 on one side, and
Odysseus and
Diomedes 2 on the
other; yet not because of the armour of
Achilles, as others
have said, but because of the
Palladium. For this
great Ajax 1 saw himself
(and many agreed with him) as the performer of
unsurpassed deeds, and therefore (he thought), the
Palladium should be
his. But on the other hand,
Diomedes 2 and
Odysseus claimed it on
the ground that they had themselves carried it off.
So Ajax 1 argued that it
was Antenor 1 who had
carried the Palladium
off, themselves having no troubles. On hearing that
true fact, Diomedes 2
yielded, but not
Odysseus, who was
finally favoured by the Atrides
Agamemnon and
Menelaus, on the ground
of his merits in this particular case only, since
no one dared to put in doubt the prowesses of
Ajax 1. Yet it was known
that they did so because it was through
Odysseus' intercession
that Helen, still loved by
Menelaus, had been
brought back unharmed; for had the will of
Ajax 1 found its way,
Helen had been
dead, since he, on the
verge of the sack of Troy,
had proposed that she should be killed who had
caused the death of so many excellent men like
himself. The decision of the Atrides caused unease
in the army, which split in two factions; and when
the next day Ajax 1 was
found dead out in the open (being later buried in
Rhoeteum by
Neoptolemus),
Odysseus, fearing those
who believed that Ajax 1
had been treacherously murdered, sailed away,
leaving the Palladium
behind for Diomedes 2
to keep.
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Death is no relief
When Odysseus
descended to Hades,
he met the spirits of several of his comrades. He
talked with some of them, but says
Odysseus:
"Alone of them
all the spirit of Ajax, son of Telamon, stood
apart, still full of wrath for the victory that I
had won over him in the contest by the ships for
the arms of Achilles...Would to god I had never won
such a prize, the arms that brought Ajax to his
grave, the heroic Ajax, who next to Achilles was the finest of all in looks and
the noblest in action." [Odysseus. Homer,
Odyssey
11.544]
However, Leonymus says he saw the soul of Ajax 1
in the White Isle.
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