Ajax the Lesser

Son of Oileus of Locris, captain of forty Locrian ships — called the Lesser Ajax only to distinguish him from the great Ajax son of Telamon; in foot-speed he was second only to Achilles at Troy (Homer *Iliad* 2.527–535; 14.520). He fought well throughout the war, but at the sack he committed the sacrilege that doomed the Greek fleet: he dragged Cassandra from the cult-image of Athena inside her temple and raped her on the sanctuary floor, outraging both the suppliant and the goddess at once (Apollodorus *Epitome* 5.22). For this Athena prevailed on Zeus and Poseidon to scatter the returning Greeks. Ajax himself reached the Gyrae rocks — Homer names them but does not localise them; ancient commentators identified them variously with Cape Caphareus on the south coast of Euboea and with a reef-cluster off Mykonos (Strabo 10.5.3) — and had already hauled himself out of the sea when he boasted that he had survived against the will of the gods. Poseidon split the rock with his trident and pitched him back into the waves, where he drowned (Homer *Odyssey* 4.499–511, Proteus's account to Menelaus).

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