Ajax the Great

Ajax (ˈeɪdʒæks) or Aias (ˈaɪ.əs; Aíās aí̯.aːs, () Αἴαντος Aíantos; archaic ΑΣϜΑϺ aí̯.waːs) is a Greek mythological hero, the son of King Telamon and Periboea, and the half-brother of Teucer. He plays an important role in the Trojan War, and is portrayed as a towering figure and a warrior of great courage in Homer's Iliad and in the Epic Cycle, a series of epic poems about the Trojan War, being second only to Achilles among Greek heroes of the war. He is also referred to as "Telamonian Ajax" (Αἴας ὁ Τελαμώνιος, in Etruscan recorded as Aivas Tlamunus), "Greater Ajax", or "Ajax the Great", which distinguishes him from Ajax, son of Oileus, also known as Ajax the Lesser. Ajax is the son of Telamon, who was the son of Aeacus and grandson of Zeus, and his first wife Periboea. Through his uncle Peleus (Telamon's brother), he is the cousin of Achilles, and is the elder half-brother of Teucer. The etymology of his given name is uncertain. By folk etymology his name was said to come from the root of aiazō αἰάζω "to lament", translating to "one who laments; mourner". Hesiod provided a different folk etymology in a story in his "The Great Eoiae", where Ajax receives his name when Heracles prays to Zeus that a son might be born to Telemon and Eriboea: Zeus sends an eagle (aetos αετός) as a sign, and Heracles then bids the parents call their son Ajax after the eagle. Many illustrious Athenians, including Cimon, Miltiades, Alcibiades and the historian Thucydides, traced their descent from Ajax. On an Etruscan tomb dedicated to Racvi Satlnei in Bologna (5th century BC) there is an inscription that says aivastelmunsl, which means "[family] of Telamonian Ajax". In the account of Dares the Phrygian, Ajax was illustrated as ". . .powerful. His voice was clear, his hair black and curly. He was perfectly single-minded and unrelenting in the onslaught of battle." Meanwhile, In Homer's Iliad he is described as of great stature, colossal frame, and strongest of all the Achaeans.

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related concepts (26)

Related lectures (3)

Storage: Tree Indexing

Explores storage layers, disk management, flash disks, and B+ tree indexing for efficient data retrieval.

Optimization in Large Search Spaces: GPU-Accelerated Join Order

Explores GPU-accelerated join order optimization in large search spaces, leveraging graph topology to reduce computational overheads.

Distributed Transactions: Consistency Spectrum

Explores the spectrum of consistency in distributed transactions, from strong to eventual consistency, and the trade-offs involved.

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories concern the ancient Greek religion's view of the origin and nature of the world; the lives and activities of deities, heroes, and mythological creatures; and the origins and significance of the ancient Greeks' cult and ritual practices.

Ajax the Great

Trojan War

In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans (Greeks) after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, king of Sparta. The war is one of the most important events in Greek mythology, and it has been narrated through many works of Greek literature, most notably Homer's Iliad. The core of the Iliad (Books II – XXIII) describes a period of four days and two nights in the tenth year of the decade-long siege of Troy; the Odyssey describes the journey home of Odysseus, one of the war's heroes.