Ajax in Athens

Abstract

This chapter examines the reception of Ajax in Athens during the archaic and the classical period. The discussion is organized in three sections which reflect distinct manners in which the Athenians related to the hero, and which also correspond to different phases in the history of Athens. The first section investigates the role Ajax played in the Athenians’ struggle to take control over Salamis in the sixth century. It analyses the different entries on Ajax in epic catalogues (Catalogue of Ships, Teichoscopia, Catalogue of Women) and surveys the archaic representations of the hero in Attic art. Amongst other things, the chapter broaches the question of the possible influence that the use of the Iliad in Athens may have had on the literary transmission of the poem. The second section ranges approximatively from the time of Cleisthenes’ reform to that of the advent of a more radical form of democracy in Athens in the middle of the fifth century BCE. It investigates the different roles the figure of Ajax plays as one of Athens’ tribal heroes and as a symbol of the Greeks’ victory against the Persians following the battle of Salamis. Ajax’s genealogical connection with the Philaid Miltiades and Cimon is scrutinized. This leads to a discussion the fragments of Aeschylus alleged trilogy on Ajax. The last section focuses on Ajax’s reception in the second part of the fifth century BCE. It mainly shows the way Sophocles exploited the various forms of the myth of Ajax in his eponymous play.