The Death of Ajax
"The Death of Ajax" refers to the tragic narrative surrounding Ajax, a prominent Greek warrior from the Trojan War, as depicted in Sophocles's play and referenced in Homer's "Iliad." Ajax, known for his immense strength and valor, finds himself at odds with Odysseus following the death of Achilles. The conflict arises over the coveted armor of Achilles, with Ajax believing he deserves it due to his close friendship with Achilles and his battlefield prowess. However, Odysseus outmaneuvers him through cunning rhetoric, leading to Ajax's deep disgrace and subsequent madness, manipulated by Athena. In a moment of delusion, Ajax kills sheep, mistaking them for his enemies, which ultimately drives him to suicide out of despair and shame. The aftermath centers on the dispute regarding his burial, showcasing the shifting values in Greek society, where intellect begins to overshadow brute strength. Ajax's story serves as a poignant reflection on honor, the nature of heroism, and the consequences of violence, emphasizing the tragic decline of traditional values in a changing world.
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Subject Terms
The Death of Ajax
Author: Sophocles
Time Period: 999 BCE–1 BCE
Country or Culture: Greece
Genre: Myth
PLOT SUMMARY
As documented in Homer’s Iliad and in subsequent dramatic interpretations attributed to Sophocles, the Greek soldier Ajax is an important figure of the Trojan War. The son of Telamon, the king of Salamis, Ajax is also known as Ajax the Greater, and he can trace his lineage directly to Zeus. Ajax is a hulking figure, reticent in speech and aggressive in battle. Among his most significant accomplishments, Ajax is credited with defeating Hector, a powerful prince of Troy.
Achilles, the most powerful warrior of the Greek armies, is killed by the Trojan prince Paris, whom Apollo aids in finding Achilles’s weakness, his heel. Ajax and Odysseus lead an assault against the Trojans to reclaim Achilles’s body for burial. Following their successful return with Achilles’s body, Ajax and Odysseus have a dispute over who will take possession of Achilles’s armor, which had been manufactured by Hephaestus and imbued with magical powers. In order to prevent bloodshed, Ajax and Odysseus agree to plead their case before the kings of Greece and to allow impartial judges to decide which warrior will receive the armor. Though Ajax was a close friend to Achilles and is in some respects a more successful warrior than Odysseus, Odysseus is more intelligent and a better orator; he is therefore successful in convincing the judges that he is deserving of the armor.
Ajax, outraged by the decision of the judges and believing the results of the vote have been fixed, is determined to kill the leaders of the Greek army and Odysseus, now his sworn enemy. However, Athena intervenes and places Ajax under a spell. Led astray by Athena’s illusion, Ajax goes mad, slaughtering a herd of sheep he believes to be the Greek kings Agamemnon and Menelaus. He captures another sheep, which he believes to be Odysseus, and plans to torture his captive before executing him.
When Athena removes the illusion, Ajax is gripped by intense grief and suffering at his dishonor. After some discussion with his wife, Tecmessa, and a group of warriors from Salamis, Ajax travels alone to a shaded grove where he kills himself, using the sword he had won from his duel with Hector. After his death, Menelaus and Agamemnon refuse to allow Ajax’s body to be buried, calling him a traitor, but Ajax’s half brother, Teucer, argues for the right to bury his dead brother. The conflict ends with the intervention of Odysseus, who convinces Agamemnon and Menelaus to allow the burial.
SIGNIFICANCE
Sophocles’s play Ajax was most likely written in the mid-fifth century BCE (ca. 440 BCE) at a time when Greek culture was in a state of political and social flux. The philosophical movement of the sophists introduced a variety of new artistic, cultural, and social ideas while the political situation was unstable as Greece prepared for the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE). Sophocles does not show the audience the contest between Ajax and Odysseus to determine who will win the divine armor of Achilles, but the difference between the two warriors is a mirror of changing values in Greece at the time the play was written. Odysseus represents the ascension of a new age, in which rhetoric, guile, cunning, and intelligence have eclipsed the traditional values of honor, courage, bravery, and duty. Ajax is a member of the old guard, and his downfall represents both the failings of traditional values and the sense of loss and tragedy as the new age begins to wipe away the virtues of the past.
The first half of Sophocles’s play focuses on Ajax’s dramatic suicide, beginning with his realization that he has brought dishonor upon himself in his hatred of his enemies. In Ajax’s speech to Tecmessa and the Salaminian warriors, he displays for the audience the tragedy inherent in the fall of the noble values he embodies:
What pleasure is there in living day after day,
Edging slowly back and forth toward death?
Anyone who warms their heart with the glow
Of flickering hope is worth nothing at all.
The noble man should either live with honor
Or die with honor. That is all there is to be said. (Meineck and Woodruff 1.475–80)
Ajax’s suicide comes at the midpoint of the play, and the remaining half is dedicated largely to the lengthy argument between Agamemnon and Ajax’s half brother regarding the right to bury Ajax as a hero despite the severity of his attempted crimes. Literary critics have noted that the dialogue of the play, concerning the argument over the dispensation of Ajax’s body, seems petty and dull in comparison to the drama of the hero’s death. As the dramatic, poetic language of the first half blends into the more banal and measured discussion of the second half, the audience is presented with an example of a world in flux, where the heroism embodied by men like Ajax must be considered a feature of the past. Odysseus eventually intervenes on Ajax’s behalf, thus representing the blend of the traditional and modern models of the hero. In Odysseus, we see that the heroic qualities embodied in the literal, physical heroism of Ajax can exist also as mental qualities, embodied in the eloquent rhetoric of Odysseus.
Also embedded within Sophocles’s Ajax is a cautionary message about the nature of war and violence. In his efforts to defeat his enemies, Ajax unwittingly murders helpless and innocent victims embodied by a herd of sheep, a species often used to invoke the ideals of purity and innocence in Western philosophy. The intervention of the goddess Athena may also represent the unforeseeable twists of fate that can and often do bring about unexpected results to one’s actions. The lesson that can be derived from this tragedy is that once engaged in a cycle of violence, unforeseen events will occur, resulting in unintended tragedies that are beyond one’s control. The traditional counter to evil, embodied by Ajax, is to answer the evil actions of others with evil actions of the same measure. The intervention of fate twists Ajax’s actions and turns his retribution back upon himself.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Beer, Josh. Sophocles and the Tragedy of Athenian Democracy. Westport: Greenwood, 2004. Print.
Jebb, Richard C., ed. The Ajax. Vol. 7 of Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments. 1896. New York: Cambridge UP, 2010. Print.
---, trans. Sophocles: Plays – Ajax. Ed. Patricia E. Easterling. London: Bristol Classical, 2004. Print.
Meineck, Peter, and Paul Woodruff, trans. Four Tragedies. By Sophocles. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2007. Print.
Mills, S. P. “The Death of Ajax.” Classical Journal 76.2 (1980–81): 129–35. Print.
Raphael, Frederic, and Kenneth McLeish, trans. “Ajax.” Sophocles, 1. Ed. David R. Slavitt and Palmer Bovie. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1998. Print.
Winnington-Ingram, R. P. Sophocles: An Interpretation. New York: Cambridge UP, 1998. Print.