Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Ajax.
The gallery
Ajax and Cassandra
Solomon Joseph Solomon, 1886
Solomon's Victorian canvas (Art Gallery of Ballarat) shows the Locrian Ajax dragging Cassandra from Athena's sanctuary — the sacrilege that dooms Ajax the Lesser on the voyage home. The painting is the modern image most closely tied to Oileus' son rather than Telamonian Ajax.
Ajax and Cassandra (Attic red-figure cup, Louvre G 458)
Unknown Attic vase-painter, c. 5th century BC
An Attic red-figure kylix in the Louvre: Locrian Ajax seizes Cassandra as she clings to Athena's statue — the Ilioupersis crime that the poets and vase-painters pinned on the son of Oileus.
Ajax the Lesser, Son of Oileus
Francesco Sabatelli, 1829
Sabatelli's print labels the warrior explicitly as Ajax the Lesser, son of Oileus — a rare modern portrait that refuses the Telamonian namesake and keeps the Locrian hero distinct.
Ajax Slain by Poseidon
Bonaventura Genelli, 19th century
Genelli's drawing closes the Locrian Ajax story: Poseidon shatters the rock where the shipwrecked hero boasted, drowning the man Athena had already marked for sacrilege at Troy.
Locrian Ajax
Unknown (French school drawing; Metropolitan Museum), c. 18th–19th century
A Metropolitan Museum drawing titled Ajax Locrien — reception's shorthand for Oileus' son, the lesser Ajax of the sack and the storm.
In music & on stage
In play
Cassandra
Christa Wolf
Wolf's Troy monologue keeps Locrian Ajax's temple rape among the war's founding crimes — the sacrilege that dooms the lesser Ajax and the Greek fleet.
The Trojan Women
Euripides
Euripides' captive chorus still names Ajax's violation of Athena's sanctuary — the Locrian crime that turns the goddess against the returning Greeks.
Ajax the Lesser
Reception keeps Oileus' son distinct from Telamonian Ajax — the sack's sacrilege and Poseidon's storm as the Locrian cautionary tale.