Search Results: Ajax the lesser

Ajax is a play written by the 5th-century BCE Greek poet and dramatist Sophocles. Although Sophocles wrote at least 120 plays, only seven have survived. Of his surviving plays, the best-known is Oedipus Rex (Oedipus the King) - part of a...

The Trojan War was fought between Greeks and the defenders of the city of Troy in Anatolia sometime in the late Bronze Age. The story has grabbed the imagination for millennia but a conflict between Mycenaeans and Hittites may well have occurred...

Homer's Iliad describes the final year of the Trojan War, a legendary conflict between an alliance of Greek cities and the city of Troy in Anatolia. It was probably written in the 8th century BCE after a long oral tradition. The Greeks themselves...

Achilles is a figure from Greek mythology and literature and star of the Trojan War. Leader of the fearsome Myrmidons, sacker of cities, and slayer of Hector, godlike Achilles was quite simply invincible in battle. Only the divine intervention...

Sophocles of Kolōnos (c. 496 - c. 406 BCE) was one of the most famous and celebrated writers of tragedy plays in ancient Greece and his surviving works, written throughout the 5th century BCE, include such classics as Oedipus Rex, Antigone...

A detail of the celebrated Athenian black-figure belly amphora (Type A) by Exekias, c. 530 BCE. The central scene depicts Achilles and Ajax playing a board game during a respite in the Trojan War. (Museo Gregoriano Etrusco, The Vatican, Rome...

The Great Hall and Lesser Hall at Chepstow Castle in Wales. The halls contained the domestic facilities of the castle. The castle was first built c. 1067 CE by Earl William FitzOsbern, and then extended from c. 1190 CE by Sir William Marshal...

An acropolis is any citadel or complex built on a high hill. The name derives from the Greek akro, "high" or "extreme/extremity" or "edge", and polis, "city", translated as "high city", "city on the edge" or "city in the air", the most famous...

A detail from the handle of one of the finest surviving examples of Attic black-figure pottery, the Francois Vase (570-565 BCE) depicting Ajax carrying the body of Achilles during the Trojan War. (Archaeological Museum, Florence)

The Oinochoe (or oenochoe) is one of the key forms of painted terracotta Greek pottery; it is a form of wine jug. The painted scene shows the goddess Athena alerting the heroes Ajax and Achilles, who are absorbed in a board game at the start...