Ajax

As critics both ancient and modern have recognized, Sophocles’ Ajax is profoundly indebted to Homer. This chapter argues that the protagonist tracks the Iliadic Achilles’ developmental path in significant respects, but that Sophocles provides his own explanation of Ajax’s character: he anchors the hero’s so-called megalomania in the harsh upbringing Ajax has received from his father, Telamon, and passes on to his own son, Eurysaces. Defeated by Odysseus in the contest for Achilles’ arms, Ajax experiences a crisis of disillusionment that takes a savage and self-destructive form. Although Ajax, like the Homeric Achilles, subsequently experiences a crisis of empathy, the impulse is both tardy and partial. It is Odysseus who matches and even exceeds the Iliadic Achilles’ compassion, thereby defeating Ajax a second time in a different contest.