ESSAY
Telamonian Ajax, the Story of Mycenaean Greece
Ajax the Greater is one of two heroes to bear that name in the Odyssey. He shared his name with a second Ajax, Oilean Ajax, or Ajax the Lesser. He was born to Telamon, king of Salamis and Eriboea (or possibly Periboea), who was a grandson of Zeus, making Ajax the great-grandson of Zeus. His father was a great hero who had sailed with Jason as one of his Argonauts, a man that Ajax always looked up to and wished to emulate. He was cousin to the greatest of the Greek heroes, Achilles, and often described as second only to him as a warrior.
Not much is known of Ajax’s early life, beyond the fact that he grew up and was raised by his father on the island of Salamis, in the Saronic Gulf off the coast of Attica, along with his half-brother and trusted friend, Teucer. Sometime during his early life, he was among the suitors of Helen, leading to his later involvement in the Trojan War, though he may have joined regardless in his search for glory. Following Homer’s stories of Ajax in the Iliad, later writers added to his story, telling of him having a similar invulnerability to Achilles thanks to Heracles. There are two version of this tale; either by Heracles offering a prayer to Zeus (as told by Apollodorus and Pindar) which led to Ajax being named Aias (after an eagle that appeared as a favorable omen), or by Heracles wrapping young Ajax in his lion’s skin (according to Lycophron). With or without this invulnerability, Ajax was a fearsome fighter who had already made a reputation for himself before setting off to fulfil his destiny in Troy.
His reputation was upheld in under the oppressive walls of Ilion, where he and his twelve ships set up camp on the exposed flank of the Greek forces. From here he led raids against Chersonesus, controlled by Thrace, taking prisoner a Trojan prince, Polydorus, along with much wealth. He also raided Phrygia, where he killed King Teuthras (Teleutas) and took home the King’s daughter, Tecmessa, who would bear him two sons among other spoils.
All in all, it appears that Ajax led an exemplary life, at least by Mycenaean standards, so why was his life fated to end in tragedy? Ajax, son of Telamon, is a hero, perhaps with historical basis, but surely with a mostly literary reason for existence. He is Mycenaean Greece, his victories are Greece’s victories, and his eventual destruction is a parallel to Greece’s descent into its Dark Ages. While everything seemed to be going great and according to plan, in reality Ajax, and Greece, were destined for tragedy.
All appeared well for Ajax, in the absence of Achilles he had strongly established himself as the greatest of the Greek warriors. His fighting prowess was widely respected and celebrated in the ranks of the Greek army, yet he as a man was not. Here were the seeds of his destruction, while the Greeks respected Ajax the fighter, there was no respect for Ajax the man; he was seen more as a bull than a lion, a weapon to be wielded by others and pointed at the enemy, not truly a friend and ally capable of making tactical decisions. This may perhaps have some relation to the fall of Mycenaean Greece around the year 1100 BCE. The Trojan War as it historically may have happened likely occurred sometime slightly before the fall of Mycenaean civilization, this was the pinnacle of pre-classical Greece. Yet soon after the victory, society collapse. Why? Maybe just as Ajax, while the fighter was respected, the person was not; meaning, individuals within the city states may have stabbed each other in the back and betrayed each other, since there was no respect for the humanity, but only for the fighter. A stretch? Perhaps. But the deeper one looks into the story of Telamonian Ajax, the more a relationship may appear.
This lack of respect of the man, almost to a derisive extent, was what led to Ajax’s eventual death. Ajax was no dumb brute, he knew that the other Greek captains did not truly respect him as an individual beyond his fighting prowess; he wanted to be viewed as his father was, as his ancestors were, not just a tool of death, but a man, a hero. In the waning days of Mycenaean Greece it is possible that raids against both friends and foe became more and more prevalent in an attempt to both reduce aggression and dissatisfaction in the home state and win glory as the Greeks’ ancestors had done in better days.
In order to gain the respect of his peers, Ajax took greater and greater risks in the fighting, perhaps risks similar to that the Greeks took in their attack against Troy. While other Greeks cowered, fearing the fate that might befall them at the hands of Hector, Ajax seemed to almost revel in the opportunity to test himself against the famed Trojan prince. When the Trojan army struggled, and Hector challenged the Greeks to send their bravest to fight him in single combat, Ajax was one of the fighters to volunteer, and was the fighter that was chosen. It is described that Hector, the Trojan champion, was intimidated by Ajax again demonstrating Ajax’s physical superiority. In fact, during the ensuing fight, Ajax gained the upper hand and nearly killed Hector with a spear throw after deflecting Hector’s throw. Using a massive stone that normal men would struggle with, Ajax drove Hector to his knees and appeared on the verge of destroying the Trojan prince when sunset put an end to their hostilities. Hector was so impressed by Ajax’s prowess that he exchanged a sword for Ajax’s girdle. Here is perhaps another allusion to Greece’s downfall into the dark ages. Ajax gave up his own defensive bit of clothing, for a weapon of war, though he had plenty himself. A girdle that might have protected him from the very sword he later fell upon. The Greek city states may have become too war like in their pursuit of glory, abandoning their own city defenses in a quest to raid ever further and in greater amounts, leaving their wives and children (or in this allegorical case, Ajax’s body) defenseless to the very weapons of war that they themselves used. Ajax went on to face Hector several more times throughout the Iliad, though he never came quite as close to killing him again.
This is Ajax the fighter, the Ajax that the Greeks respected, but what of Ajax the man? Unlike the dim view that his fellow Greeks have of him, Ajax is not as simple a man as he first appears. Following continued fighting and losses on both sides, Ajax is one of the men sent to attempt to convince Achilles to rejoin the war. Though Phoenix appeals to Achilles using loyalty, and Odysseus uses all of his great wiles in an attempt to draw Achilles back into the fighting, it is Ajax whose blunt words lacking in cunning that most nearly convince Achilles to rejoin the fighting (9.766-779). In his very simplicity, his very lack of guile is the worth of Ajax; with him what he says is what he means. He represents a ideal hero, a man peerless on the battle field, and trustworthy to a fault. Ajax the man was steadfast to his allies and immovable to his enemies, with great determination, as seen in his defense of the Greek ships from the assault of Hector though he stood alone. He stood fast until the very gods themselves had to intervene in order for Hector to reach his prize. The Greek city states prior to their collapse may have been similar. Unwavering in their behavior, thinking in terms of honor and not realizing the realpolitik required to be successful in power long-term. There is some evidence that the collapse of Mycenaean Greece may have been preceded by ecological disaster, something that to the Greeks in the years following may have been seen as an act of the gods, much as Ajax’s spear breaking was an act of Apollo.
Still with all these subtleties that may or may not foretell his death and the collapse of Mycenaean civilization, with the breaking of his spear by the gods, the story of Ajax takes a turn towards darkness. Before, he was unstoppable, second only to Achilles among the Greeks, but after this point it was all down hill for Ajax and for Mycenaean Greece. During the funeral games for the slain Patroclus, Homer’s Iliad (23.753-760) tells of Ajax, who had previously never been bested was tied in the wrestling arena by wily Odysseus, who uses cunning to defeat the towering hero. He also fights and loses to Diomedes in the arena, thanks to the other Greeks worrying that Diomedes’s reckless spear thrusts would kill Ajax. Twice in quick succession, this man, second among the Greeks, is humiliated and defeated. How, did this occur? Very simply, Odysseus defeated Ajax by avoiding military confrontation, instead using trickery and subterfuge to defeat him in the arena. Diomedes used Ajax’s honor, the fact that he did not wish to kill his competitor against him with his recklessness. The fall of Mycenaean civilization shows evidence of infighting among the city states, perhaps it was felt that while the leadership of the states focused on martial prowess and face to face combat, their enemies used trickery and the states’ own honor code against them in order to overthrow them. At every point so far the only issue for Ajax was his honor and lack of guile. He did not use subterfuge and thus did not expect it to be used against him. Perhaps this mirrors the Mycenaean leadership.
His lack of trickery in dealing with the opposition could perhaps be attributed to Ajax’s lack of intelligence, but this does not appear to be the case. There is much artwork, most famously black figure amphoras by Exekias, depicting Ajax and Achilles playing some kind of board game or dice game. As Mariscal (2011) states, this shows that Ajax was not without some intelligence. It takes cunning to play board games and a simple brute would not gain enjoyment from such a past time. This shows that it was likely not that Ajax was incapable of subtlety and intrigue, but instead chose not to use these methods as he viewed them as detracting from his honor. The descendants of Mycenaean Greece viewed their forebearers as heroes and legends, capable of everything, so their destruction could not have been due to inability but due to honor instead.
Ajax’s descent from the pinnacle of the Greek army to his untimely demise reached its crescendo following the death of Achilles. The Greeks held a competition to see who would receive the armor of Achilles, greatest of the Greek warriors, cousin of Ajax, as a reward. Again, it came down to a competition between Ajax and wily Odysseus to see who would receive the wonderous armor, and again Odysseus prevailed. Stories vary on how the decision was made to give Odysseus the armor and not Ajax, with some having a Greek leadership decide and others saying that Trojan prisoners were used; either way, the result was clear, Odysseus received the armor, and Ajax received nothing. When Ajax made his claim on the armor, he based it on facts; on his close blood relationship to Achilles, on his closer relationship to Zeus, and on his combat prowess. Odysseus on the other hand spun words and complicated his argument using word play to outmaneuver Ajax and win the minds of the judges. Again, we see the same pattern in the undoing of Ajax; his inability or unwillingness to play dirty, to use trickery, led to less scrupulous individuals defeating him. This likely mirrors the view of later Greeks of what caused the downfall of Mycenaean civilization. Like most civilizations the Greek one that followed the collapse of Mycenaean civilization lionized their ancestors, and yet they faced the issue that their ancestors had failed, that the society had collapsed. Thus, they found the perfect tool in making them overly honorable to the point where they were taken advantage of by less savory members of society and by their enemies both within and without, much like our tragic hero Ajax.
Just like many of his fellow heroes fell beneath the walls of Troy, Ajax was destined to never see his home again. Here his story once again becomes cloudy. Homer simply states that Ajax died and leaves the method and cause murky. Sophocles however tells a story of madness. In Sophocles’s tale, Ajax is driven mad by the slight of not receiving the armor of Achilles and attempts to murder the Greek leadership, but is tricked by Athena and instead kills farm animals. Yet this is not the Ajax that is previously seen, and the great writers of tragedies were known to change characters to better fit the story they wish to tell, or could there be another explanation? It could be, as Simpson (1969) claims, that modern language has changed the understanding of what Ajax truly underwent. He claims that when Athena states that she clouded Ajax’s vision, this did not simply mean sight, but also the mind. This would mean that Athena drove Ajax crazy and drove him to possibly plan the attack against the Greek leadership. This would perfectly fit with the idea of Ajax being a proxy for Mycenaean Greece. It plays into the story of the gods being the undoing of the Mycenaeans, with Athena ultimately causing the downfall of Ajax by driving him mad with anger. Just as Apollo had previously broken his spear, this was a blow through very little fault of his own, beyond perhaps hubris. There are stories that Ajax refused to pray for the gods’ protection prior to leaving for the Trojan War and that was the reason they treated him so harshly. Perhaps their descendants viewed the Mycenaeans’ warlike ways as acts of hubris that, though the men were just and honorable, led to the gods striking them down with ecological disasters (Drake 2012) and infighting.
However, the collapse of Mycenaean society does not appear to have been instant, but more of a drawn-out process (Livni 2019) and it is here that Ajax’s most famous words come into play. Prior to his suicide at the midpoint of Sophocles’s Ajax, the titular hero gives a speech that has been often discussed. In the play Ajax (lines 646-693), Ajax appears to intend to repent for his madness and acquiesce to those he disagreed with, yet soon after he takes his own life. Why? It appears that he truly did set out to rethink his place in the world after his speech, it is unlikely that a man that has previously been so straightforward would suddenly grow deceptive, and finds that he does not fit the world anymore. Thus, he chooses to remove himself from the world, rather than taint it with his presence. In this way, later Greeks could explain the collapse of Mycenaean civilization, it was a combination of factors, none of which were wholly the fault of the Greeks that eventually led to Mycenaean society no longer being tenable, and thus disappearing. The palace society could no longer support itself due to political and ecological issues, and thus faded from existence. This story would allow the descendants to keep a glorious view of their ancestors that oversaw this slow collapse.
The story of Ajax is one of tragedy, of a hero that through almost no fault of his own, is destroyed by his enemies and the gods. He wishes only to prove himself and live up to the standards of his forebearers and due to his notion of honor, is exploited by those who he should be able to trust. The very gods turn against him and work towards his annihilation. This is mirrored in the possible narrative that the Greeks may have told of the collapse of Mycenaean civilization. A civilization almost too pure for this world that was taken advantage of by forces both on the inside and the outside. That may have angered the gods unwittingly, but was blameless beyond that fact. A true tragedy, Ajax and Mycenaean civilization, hand in hand, whether purposefully or not, the two fit together like pieces of a puzzle.
Sources
Drake, Brandon L. “The Influence of Climatic Change on the Late Bronze Age Collapse and the Greek Dark Ages.” Journal of Archaeological Science, vol. 39, no. 6, 2012, pp. 1862–1870., doi:10.1016/j.jas.2012.01.029.
Exekias, “Black-figure amphora with Achilles and Ajax playing dice,” c. 550-525 BCE. Museo gregoriano etrusco (Vatican City). Ceramic, 61.1 cm tall.
Homer. The Iliad. Trans. Stanley Lombardo. Indianapollis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997.
Livni, Joseph. “Investigation of Collapse of Complex Socio-Political Systems Using Classical Stability Theory.” Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and Its Applications, vol. 524, 2019, pp. 553–562., doi:10.1016/j.physa.2019.04.167.
Mariscal, Lucia Romero. “Ajax and Achilles Playing a Board Game: Revisited from the Literary Tradition.” The Classical Quarterly, vol. 61, no. 2, 2011, pp. 394-401.
Simpson, Michael. “SOPHOCLES’ AJAX: HIS MADNESS AND TRANSFORMATION.” Arethusa, vol. 2, no. 1, 1969, pp. 88–103.
Sophocles. Ajax. Trans. Shomit Duta. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.