AJAX (Gr. Aias), a Greek hero, son of Oileus, king of
Locris, called the "lesser" or Locrian Ajax, to distinguish
him from Ajax, son of Telamon. 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 offence
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
even violated her (Lycophron, 360, Quintus Smyrnaeus xiii.
422). For this, his ship was wrecked in a storm on the coast
of Euboea, and he himself was struck by lightning (Virgil,
Aen. 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
Sophocles. The rape of Cassandra by Ajax was frequently
represented in Greek works of art, for instance on the chest
of Cypselus described by Pausanias (v. 17) and in extant works.
Initial text from 1911 encyclopedia -- Please update as needed
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