Ajax or Aias (Greek: Αἴας, gen. Αἴαντος) was a mythological Greek hero, the son of Telamon and Periboea and king of Salamis. He plays an important role in Homer's Iliad and in the Epic Cycle, a series of epic poems about the Trojan War. To distinguish him from Ajax, son of Oileus (Ajax the Lesser), he is called "Telamonian Ajax," "Greater Ajax," or "Ajax the Great". In Etruscan mythology, he is known as Aivas Tlamunus.
In Homer's Iliad he is desc...
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Ajax or Aias (Greek: Αἴας, gen. Αἴαντος) was a mythological Greek hero, the son of Telamon and Periboea and king of Salamis. He plays an important role in Homer's Iliad and in the Epic Cycle, a series of epic poems about the Trojan War. To distinguish him from Ajax, son of Oileus (Ajax the Lesser), he is called "Telamonian Ajax," "Greater Ajax," or "Ajax the Great". In Etruscan mythology, he is known as Aivas Tlamunus.
In Homer's Iliad he is described as of great stature and colossal frame, the tallest and strongest of all the Achaeans, but for his cousin Achilles in skill-at-arms, and Diomedes to whom he lost a sparring competition as well as the 'bulwark of the Achaeans'. He was trained by the centaur Chiron (who had also trained his father, Telamon, and Achilles' father Peleus), at the same time as Achilles. Apart from Achilles, Ajax is the most valuable warrior in Agamemnon's army (along with Diomedes), though he is not as cunning as Nestor, Diomedes, Idomeneus, or Odysseus. He...
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