Ajax

Not knowing when the play was produced and what tragedies were performed alongside it makes it difficult to determine with what specific historical events Sophocles may have been engaging. Generally, though, assuming a production date of 440s BC, this was a period of increasing tension between Athens and Sparta. The neighboring city states had joined forces to repel the Persian invasion in 480, but after this success, Athens’ growing power created increasing conflicts with Sparta that led to war. Ajax’s narrative of Greeks fighting amongst each other resonates with events across the fifth century, when administratively independent Greek-speaking city states were continually fighting skirmishes and full-scale battles against each other.

As with all surviving Athenian tragedies, Ajax would have been performed in a sacred context, at a festival held to honor the gods of the city, and it assumes its audience is familiar with the larger Trojan war narrative. After the death of Achilles (Ajax’s cousin), Ajax and Odysseus participated in competitive games in honor of their fallen comrade. Athena intervened to ensure Odysseus’s victory, and he was awarded the arms of Achilles. Ajax, who was considered the second-best warrior after Achilles, was so distraught by the dishonor that he killed himself. Ajax picks up his story after his dispute with Odysseus and before his suicide. According to ancient and medieval sources, the dispute and suicide are told in the Aethiopis, one of several epics narrating the Trojan war, only two of which have survived mostly complete, those being the Iliad and Odyssey.

To understand the extent of Ajax’s despair, it is helpful to understand the significance of prizes within the world of Trojan war mythology. A warrior’s prizes were the physical manifestations of his achievements, and they signified the regard in which he was held by his comrades. To be stripped of one’s prizes—also a source of conflict in Homer’s Iliad—was to be stripped of respect and honor, and even the warrior’s place in his community. Sophocles amplifies this element of the conflict by attributing the decision to award Achilles’s arms to a jury vote, bringing the world of the Trojan war more in line with governance in the playwright’s city state of Athens. In the play, it is not Athena alone who conspires to reduce Ajax and elevate Odysseus but Ajax’s own peers. Having been so dishonored, it is impossible for Ajax to return home to his father, a decorated warrior himself, who participated in the first sack of Troy with Heracles.

Tecmessa’s report to the Chorus that Ajax is refusing food and drink suggests that his grief and rage could turn destructive, as it eventually has (when he slaughtered the herds that he believed were the Greeks) and will again when he takes his own life. Refusing food and drink and removing oneself from the company of one’s peers is associated with both Achilles (in the Iliad) and Demeter (in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter) prior to their destructive acts. As in both these cases, Ajax illuminates how everyone associated with the hero is affected by his death. As the leader of the Salamnian forces, Ajax is responsible for its warriors, who make up the play’s Chorus. Having destroyed Tecmessa’s previous life and claimed her as his own, Ajax is responsible for protecting her and their son. His brother, Teucer, will also suffer the consequences of his brother’s death, as will Ajax’s parents back home. Everyone is connected; thus, no one remains unaffected. Ajax’s refusal to meet his responsibilities shows how the conflict over Achilles’s arms has isolated and alienated him from his social connections.