Ajax (play)

Ajax
The Suicide of Ajax. Etruscan red-figured calyx-krater, c. 400–350 BCE. Currently in British Museum (1867,0508.1328)
Written by	Sophocles
Chorus	Sailors from Salamis
Characters	Athena Odysseus Ajax Tecmessa Messenger Teucer Menelaus Agamemnon
Mute	Attendants Servants Soldiers Eurysaces
Place premiered	Athens
Original language	Ancient Greek
Genre	Tragedy

Trojan War
Achilles tending the wounded Patroclus (Attic red-figure kylix, c. 500 BC)
Literary sources Iliad Epic Cycle Aeneid, Book 2 Iphigenia in Aulis Philoctetes Ajax The Trojan Women Posthomerica See also: Trojan War in literature and the arts
Episodes Judgement of Paris Seduction of Helen Trojan Horse Sack of Troy The Returns Wanderings of Odysseus Aeneas and the Founding of Rome
Greeks and allies Agamemnon Achilles Helen Menelaus Nestor Odysseus Ajax Diomedes Patroclus Thersites Achaeans Myrmidons See also: Achaean Leaders, Catalogue of Ships
Trojans and allies Priam Hecuba Hector Paris Cassandra Andromache Aeneas Memnon Troilus Penthesilea and the Amazons Sarpedon See also: Trojan Battle Order, Trojan Leaders
Participant gods Caused the war: Eris On the Greek side: Athena Hephaestus Hera Hermes Thetis Poseidon On the Trojan side: Aphrodite Apollo Ares Artemis Leto Scamander Zeus
Historicity Ahhiyawa Alaksandu Archaeology of Troy Attarsiya Hisarlık Homeric Question Late Bronze Age Troy Manapa-Tarhunta letter Milawata letter Tawagalawa letter Trojan language Wilusa See also: Historicity of the Iliad
Related topics Bronze Age Collapse Euhemerism Homeric Question Mycenae Mycenaean warfare
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Sophocles' Ajax, or Aias (/ˈeɪdʒæks/ or /ˈaɪ.əs/; Ancient Greek: Αἴας [a͜í.aːs], gen. Αἴαντος), is a Greek tragedy written in the 5th century BCE. Ajax may be the earliest of Sophocles' seven tragedies to have survived, though it is probable that he had been composing plays for a quarter of a century already when it was first staged. It appears to belong to the same period as his Antigone, which was probably performed in 442 or 441 BCE, when he was 55 years old.^[1] The play depicts the fate of the warrior Ajax, the second greatest hero at Troy (after Achilles), after the events of the Iliad but before the end of the Trojan War.