44578151

THE UNITY OF SOPHOCLES' "AJAX"
Author(s): WM. BLAKE TYRRELL

Source: Arethusa, Vol. 18, No. 2 (FALL 1985), pp. 155-185
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/44578151
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THE UNITY OF SOPHOCLES' AJAX
WM. BLAKE TYRRELL
Sophocles' Ajax has long puzzled critics because it seems to fa

apart after Ajax' death. The agony of the hero's disillusionment an
glory of his suicide are followed by the squabbling of small men ov
his corpse. This transition, stark and unsatisfying, has prompted
critics to view the play as a diptych.1 Others who have defended i
structure have often found the unifying element in the corpse, which
appears as the culmination of the first half of the play and the foc
of a process of rehabilitation in the second.2 These approaches su
gest that unity is essentially to be sought in factors of plot and cha
acter. Yet Aristotle subordinated both to action,3 and, as the prese
study will show, it is action founded on both textual and extratextu
grounds that provides the unifying element of Ajax .
The dominant action of the play, that to which every figure
reacts according to his intellect or character, is the slaughter
animals. To an audience for whom "a meat-working [butcherin
day" connoted sacrifice,4 such an act would have evoked sacrifice
1 Schol. ad 1123; Webster 1963.102-3; Bowra 1944.18; Whitman 1951.63; Kirkwo

1958.42-49; Waldock 1966.50-61; Gellie 1972.191-93.
2 The following find the unity of Ajax to varying degrees in Ajax himself: Jebb 189
xxviii-xxix; Bowra 1944.49-50; Pearson 1922.130; Reinhardt 1947.39-41; Kitto 195
128-29; Adams 1955.94-95; Knox 1961.2; Rosenmeyer 1963.159; Stanford 196
lxiii-lxiv; Kott 1972.44-45 and 70-76; Taplin 1978.41 and 150; Segal 1981.111-1
Seale 1982.170.
3 Arist. Poet . 1448al, 49b24 and 36, 50al6-23, 50b3-4 and 52a2. See Jones 1971.24-29,
for whom the action of Ajax is "Ajax's entry upon heroic status." See also Redfield
1975.61-64; Belfiore 1983/84.110-24, who concludes: "We have found, then, that in
Aristotle's dramatic theory, action, a mere event, is primary and that ethos , that
which indicates choice and confers quality, is of secondary importance and is not a
necessary part of all tragedies" (124).
4 Aesch. Ag. 1592; Fraenkel 1950.3.747-48.
155
ARETHUSA VOL. 18 (1985) 2.
156 Wm. Blake Tyrrell
even had Sophocles not used sac

deed.5 Plot and character inform t
by patterns and strategies develop
imagination irres to conceal the
sacrifice is a murder upon whi
munication with its gods and f
whose gruesomeness in physical
role attributed to it by religious b
must put it into the context of
generated by 0uaia.
Blood sacrifice (Guaia) for the Greeks differentiated the
human, civilized, and normal from the abnormal of the bestial below
and the divine above.6 Its rites were intended to distinguish the slaugh-
ter of the victim from murder (cpóvoç). Insight into the functioning of
these rites may be gained from the festival of the Bouphonia, since it
constructs sacrifice out of an original or primordial murder, while,
at the same time, denying that the murder took place.7 J.-P. Guépin
has noted its relevance for Ajax in the slaughter of animals and the
agon in the final scene.8 Guépin's observations may be extended and
greater attention paid to the contrast between the scapegoating of the
ax and knife in the Bouphonia and the evident guilt of the sword in
Ajax. Strategies employed in the Bouphonia, not all of which are
unique to that festival, are negated and rendered ineffective by the
spectacle of Ajax sitting amid a veoatpayriç (póvoç (546). John Moore's
translation of the phrase, "fresh-butchered gore,"9 although true to
Ajax' assessment of his situation, glosses over the collision of bestial
5 See Jebb 1896 on line 283; Kamberbeek 1963 on lines 220 and 238; Stanford 1963
on lines 298-300; Segal 1981.138-42. Stengl 1910.120 (concerning lines 298-99):
"The mad hero slaughters the beasts as if he sacrifices them."
6 Animals were sacrificed and eaten; men sacrifice and eat animals; gods neither sacri-
fice nor eat meat but receive the savor of the meat and the scent of the spices ascending
to them in smoke. See Vernant 1974.191-94 and 1977.909-15; Segal 1981.40-41.
For the rites of thusia see Stengl 1910; Ziehen 1939.598-619; Rudhardt 1958. esp. 257-
66; Burkert 1966.104-13 and 1983.3-12.
7 Vernant 1981.14-15. See also Detienne 1977b. Chapter 3 and, especially, 52-57.
8 Guépin 1968.3-4 and 39-40 links the Bouphonia with Ajax by Ajax* having killed
animals while mad. This circumstance allows sacrifice, in Guépin's view, to inter-
pret the Dionysiac sacrifice fundamental to tragedy as a crime.
9 Moore 1957.28.
The Unity of Sophocles' Ajax 157
and civilized implied by Sophocles. Sophocl

with the sight of Ajax, would sense anoth
"newly sacrificed murder." By "playing" w
and burial of Ajax, the author "interferes"
knowledge which characterizes ritual comm
are our customs, and so have we always do
nance in his audience between tradition an
the first time on the stage. In the safe confin
takes apart, deconstructs, the rituals and id
Athenians celebrated the Bouphonia
the festival of Zeus Polieus, in the god's tem
The use of the double ax and of a bronze table instead of an altar
suggests a Mycenaean origin for the ritual.11 By the fifth century the
Bouphonia had become an oddity, but its rites continued to be prac-
ticed into Pausanias' time.12 Barley and wheat or meal in honeyed
oil were placed, unguarded, upon the table, and selected oxen were
driven past it; whichever animal touched the holy things was struck
with the ax and skinned with the knife. The slayer, a cult functionary
called the Poixpóvoç or ßoimmog, dropped the ax and fled. The ax,
according to Pausanias (1.28.10), was brought to trial, condemned,
and cast out, while the knife, according to Porphyry ( Abst . 2.30)
who follows Theophrastus, was condemned after a trial and cast into
the sea. The ox's hide was stuffed with hay and set in front of the plow.
The meaning of the ritual depends upon the heightened me-
tonymy between the bestial and the human that characterizes the
plow ox.13 More integrated into the household than other domesti-
cated animals (dogs and cats were rarely sacrificed), the plow ox
labored in the fields beside the men, providing them with food it
helped to cultivate. By virtue of its increased contiguity with men, the
plow ox becomes "too human" and, therefore, unsuitable for sacrifice,
since human beings - a state the ox too nearly approximates -
10 Porph. Abst. 2.10 and 28-30; Paus. 1.24.4 and 28.10; Stengl 1910.203-21; Deubner
1966.158-74; Meuli 1946.275-77; Nilsson 1955.152-55; Parke 1977.162-67; Vernant
1981.14-13; Burkert 1983.136-43; William E. Jordan, "Myth and Ideology in the
Athenian Bouphonia," unpublished Masters thesis, 1983, Wayne State University.
11 Simon 1983.9
12 Ar. Nub. 984; Paus. 1.24.4.
13 Vernant 1981.15. On metonymy see Leach 1976.14-15 and 81-84.
cannot be eaten. Eating was an e

roasting and tasting of the cnX
boiled afterwards and made into stew. The former act united the
participants through consumption of the parts most suffused with
blood and, hence, most numinous, and the latter joined the larger
company in the fellowship of the feast.14 Since sacrificing a plow ox
virtually entails cannibalism, its immolation provides a test of the
ritual and the logic of blood sacrifice.15
The myth accompanying Porphyry's description of the Bou-
phonia places the murder of the ox at a time before blood sacrifice
when only cakes and grain were offered to the gods. It belongs to a
tradition which pictured sacrifice as terminating men's innocence
of bloodshed and making them more remote from the gods.16 In that
regard the myth is consistent with the strategies aimed at diverting
blame for the murder away from the community as well as with the
overall attempt of the ritual to deny a murder occurred. The ox is im-
plicated in its own slaughter by having it desecrate holy things; the
ax is similarly put at fault for being handy. Sopatros or Diomos17 slays
the ox while out of his mind with anger over the desecration; further-
more, he is an outsider, someone not of the community but a farmer
resident in Attica as an alien. These devices represent the murder and
the ensuing rites of sacrifice as inflicted upon the community by
others in the same way that Hesiod in the Theogony attributes the
origin of sacrifice to the one-upmanship of Zeus and Prometheus.18
Sopatros (to use one name) buries the ox as he would a man
and, polluted with murder, goes into exile. After his flight to Crete,
barrenness and drought oppress the community. The latter consults
Apollo in Delphi, and the Pythia responds as follows:
[T]he exile in Crete will redeem these [barrenness and

drought], and vengeance having been taken on the mur-
derer and the dead having been resurrected in the same
sacrifice in which [the dead] died (àné Gave), those who
14 Rudhardt 1958.289-90; Detienne 1977a. 178-79.

15 Vernant 1981.15.
16 For sources see Lovejoy and Boas 1973.32-34.
17 Porph. Abst. 2.10 Diomos; 2.29: Diomos or Sopatros. I follow Porphyry who prefers
Sopatros.
18 Hes. Th. 535-55. See Vernant 1974 and 1977.
taste the dead and do not hold back will be better off
(Porph. Abst. 2.29).
Drought and barrenness as physical phenomena bring about the ex-

tinction of the community by thirst and starvation; as religious phe-
nomena they indicate hidden contamination. But as elements in a
myth, they have no external referent; no real drought is being referred
to. They signify the loss of differences between human and bestial
created by Sopatros.19 They can do so because drought and barren-
ness, like the plague in the Oedipus Tyr annus that denotes the loss of
kinship differences, kill indiscriminately. Sopatros has killed a beast
as if it were a man. The oracle directs the community to atone for its
murder with the life of Sopatros; "vengeance having been taken on
the murderer" can only indicate the slaying of Sopatros, while "the
dead having been resurrected in the same sacrifice in which [the dead]
died," could refer to Sopatros or the ox. The subject of árcéGave
could be animal or human. Both would be dead. By one reading of
the oracle, then, the community may avenge the murder of the plow ox
by killing and eating Sopatros.20 Yet an oracle "neither speaks out
nor conceals but points" (Heraclitus, fr. 93). Sopatros atones for his
deed and rids himself of pollution by another reading of the oracle:
he substitutes an animal for himself; it dies and is eaten.
Sopatros reckoned that he would be released from the

unpleasantness of being polluted if they all did these
measures [those prescribed by the oracle] in common. He
told those who came to him [in Crete] that the ox must be
slain by the city. Since they were at their wits' end over who
would be slayer, he offered them this possibility: if they
made him a citizen, they could share the murder (Porph.
Abst . 2.29).
Sopatros acts like a sacrificer at a time when, as depicted by

the myth, animals are not offered. Slaying the ox in such circum-
stances is murder whether committed by Sopatros or someone else;
that accounts for the community's consternation over who would
19 Girard 1974.833-45 and 1977.76-77.

20 The Bouphonia, however, did not replace human sacrifice. See Stengl 1910.215-
18; Deubner 1966.171; Henrichs 1981.195, 204-5 and 232.
be slayer. But what is murder w

sacrifice when done by the group.
who taste and do not hold back
larizes the community's violenc
stores difference between human and bestial. No man is murderer
because all are murderers. The myth reveals that men avoid killing
one another by uniting to kill animals in a ritualized manner; in other
words, men sacrifice animals in order to forestall murdering one
another.21 The civilizing role of blood sacrifice is distorted by the
mythmaker with the implication that the dead to be resurrected and
eaten is the ox, but he does not conceal the other possible victim -
Sopatros.
The myth denies a murder took place by spreading respon-
sibility for the deed among all members of the community. The ritual
achieves the same result by directing the blame at member after
member.
Assembling a trial for murder, they summoned everyone

who had participated in the deed to defend himself. The
water-fetchers charged that the sharpeners were more
to blame than they. The sharpeners said the same about
the ax-administrator, and this one of the throat-cutter,
and this one of the knife which, being without a voice, was
condemned for murder (Porph. Abst. 2.30).
After the sacrifice and tasting of the meat, the community holds a
trial. The unity achieved through a common violence against an
animal whose flesh is eaten in a communal meal is shattered as each
participant accuses the other of the crime of murder. Sacrifice has
disappeared in murder and with its disappearance, the distinctions
between the ox as sacrificial victim and as murder victim as well as
those between sacrificer and murderer. All participants are equally
guilty; yet each would distinguish himself by erecting the difference
21 Girard 1977.18: "[Tļhe rites of sacrifice serve to polarize the community's aggres-
sive impulses and redirect them toward victims that may be actual or figurative,
animate or inanimate, but that are always incapable of propagating further ven-
geance. The sacrificial process furnishes an outlet for those violent impulses that
cannot be mastered by self-restraint. . . . The sacrificial process prevents the spread
of violence by keeping vengeance in check."
innocent/guilty where no such difference i

outburst of what René Girard calls "reci
it effects a vicious circle of reprisals that
munity.22 Reciprocity ends; violence cease
among members and is focused again on a c
difference between voiced/voiceless is esta
more guilty than another, has no voice by w
and avoid victimization by substituting an
knife and cast it into the sea, thereby ridd
pollution, namely, the loss of differences.
The rituals and ideology of Guaia and e
Bouphonia undoubtedly inform Sophocles'
madness and murder of animals, his person
well as its prominence, his victimization of
animal, the tableau of his son and wife st
body, and the reciprocal violence emanatin
these recall even as they defeat sacrificial s
the role of Odysseus remains outside the sequ
the ritual of the pharmakos informs Soph
and the ephēbeia his PhiloctetesP The slaug
suggested the connection; however, no d
postulated. All these rituals belong to Soph
sacrifice as homo necans ,24
Ajax begins with Odysseus entering slo
is scrutinizing the trail (as the audience soo
mingled human and animal tracks. Athena
looking down upon Odysseus from atop th
scene is a visual one, "charged," as David S
22 Girard 1977.43-49 and Chapters 1-4 passim.

23 Segal 1981.109-51 has integrated Ajax into the pola
the Greeks and in this sense has sought meaning fo
sources. See Vernanťs essay in Vernant and Vidal-N
1977.68-88. Vernant and Girard seek a unifying pat
the ritual of the scapegoat, while Vidal-Naquet 1972
from the rituals and practices of the ephēbeia.
24 Homo necans refers to Burkert 1983.3: " Homo relig
ness as homo necans ." Burkert 1966.116 n.68 is awa
death.
25 On the question of Athena's location in the prologue see Seale 1982.176 n.3 with
whom I concur.
162 W m. Blake Tyrrell
prospect of revelation."26 The audi

walking between the goddess above
extending out below him. The sight
between divine and bestial that con
who has descended to the bestial. A
made known by the goddess (13). Du
now unfolding, Ajax fell upon anim
and littered his hut with their brok
scene becomes contextualized: Od
human condition, is in the prologu
bloodied with what he believes to b
from the human by virtue of his
depicted, in a seeming paradox, as as
he shares with Athena an ethic of f
over, by regarding her as an "ally"
ordinate to whom he gives orders (1 1
explained. In reducing sacrifice to mur
61, 309), Ajax obliterates the differ
as well as between human and bestia
whose existence depends upon the
collapse into one.
Tecmessa saw Ajax in the hut but
and, although ignorant of the mea
to sacrifice.
Such things you could see inside the hut, the victims
[a<payi (a)] slain by his hand, bathed in blood, the sacri-
ficial victims [XP^o^iÍP1**] of that man (218-219).
He cut the throats [a<páÇ (s)] of some on the ground in-

side (235).
Turning others upward, he cut their throats [ëa<paÇe]

(298-299).
£a<paÇe in line 299 (and so probably in 235), because of the drawing

back of the neck, must be rendered in its proper sense of slaughter for
26 Seale 1982.144.
27 Knox 1961.8-9.
sacrifice. Yet Ajax' victims contradict the terms

a(p dyia were sacrificed before a dangerous un
before a battle in the presence of the enemy. Th
and poured over the altar; from the color of t
the fire burning the gallbladder or urinary bladd
a prophet sought omens of success and divine
XPTļariļpia.28 The rite released through med
animals the emotions of men about to engage
Ajax' victims are not sacrificed but slain as m
becomes actual violence against animals that d
as enemies. Their numinous blood is profaned
his hut, and the Argive land. And while they fore
wrath in the carnage-ridden hut, they arous
suicide.
Sophocles begins Ajax' tragedy when, a
much time, Ajax hears from Tecmessa how he
full of äxr|. "When he looked around the hut ful
his head and wailed; he was sitting, ruined am
carcasses of his sheep murder" (307-9). Tecme
I have never heard the like before from h

considered such lamentations characteristic of a low and
melancholy man, but he would stay quiet, no high-pitched
shrieks. He would moan like a bellowing bull (318-22).
Sophocles intensifies Tecmessa's report of Ajax' screams by cries of

"O me" (333, 336) that come from within the hut, the first sounds
uttered by the undeluded Ajax. Quickly, as if to shock the audience,
Sophocles displays before them an Ajax laid low among his victims.
Commentators have referred to the unusual dramaturgy of Ajax; it
derives from Sophocles' revelation of the hidden or, in Jean-Pierre
Vernant's phrase, the non-dit of sacrifice - <póvoç.30
2g Stengl 1910.92-101; Rudhardt 1958.272-75.

29 Henrichs 1981.216. According to Henrichs (220), Greeks shifted responsibility for
slaughtering so many victims before a battle from themselves onto gods of wild and
savage nature, e.g., Artemis of the Wild or Dionysus the Raw-Eater. Similarly,
the Chorus, unable to accept Ajax as responsible, would shift the blame to Artemis
Tauropola, Ares, or Enyalios (171-85).
30 Commentators: see Seale 1982.174; Vernant 1981.6. Most striking are Ajax* appear-
ance amid the carcasses (546) and his death on stage.
During Guaia, at the moment w

out.31 Their shrieks (òXoXvyaí)
building against the animal. Its
its body has been pelted with th
snipped from its head with the
lows; the women cry out. This e
with the victim's consent; it has
immolated, first, by approachin
by shaking its head when spatte
Xvyaí salute and recognize in sp
and terror of the god's advent
severed throat onto the altar. V
take place in the profane space
zone where sacred and profane
observing a propitious silence
water and basket containing the k
thus marking off the altar from
silence with a virgin carrying t
gasps accompanied with the shri
Ajax' screams generate meanin
the women. Visually, Sophocles
erect participants of sacrifice, a
nition that he has killed animals with the ritualized cries at the death
of the victim. The sacrificers remain in liminal space while Ajax'
descent to the bestial, prefigured by the trail into his hut, is reified by
his appearance on the ekkyklěma .34 The women's screams culminate
a common violence; Ajax', his own mad attack. Their shrieks evince
whatever emotions - horror, guilt, repulsion, awe - that the elabo-
rate rites of Oncia circumscribe, the same emotions that the myth of
the Bouphonia signifies by pollution, barrenness and drought. The
women cry out in the presence of a god whose ever fearful approach
31 For the ololugē see Horn. Ody. 3.349-52; Aesch. Sept. 269; Ziehen 1939.608.
32 Calmly: Aesch. Ag. 1297; Ael. NA 10.50; Plut. Pel. 21. Voluntarily: Ar. Pax 960;
Porph. Ab st. 2.9; Plut. Quaes, cony. 729F.
33 This area was delineated by carrying around the altar water and a basket containing
the sacrificial knife hidden beneath grains of barley (Ar. Pax 948 and 956-57 and
Schol. Pax 948). For these rites see Ziehen 1939.600 and Rudhardt 1958.259. On
liminality see Burkert 1966.106-9 and Leach 1976.33-36 and 81-84.
34 Jebb 1896.62; Taplin 1978.108; Seale 1982.153.
has been sought by prayers and by the immolati

Ajax "awakens" to find himself facing what h
"fearless beasts" (366), the true terror of wh
primordial murder confined and disguised by
and through clouded vision, naked and unprotect
of civilization, Ajax confronts the other force
civilization, by those same institutions.35 His
of a man in the presence of the savage and of
call "god."
Naked aggression against helpless animals
a sane man. Sopatros slays the ox while out o
the same motif explains the slaying of Artemis'
foundation myths of her rites at Brauron.36 The
sailors assumes that Ajax did not fall upon her
own mind" (182). It is "unthinkable," because
of the sort to be sacrificed undermines sacrifice itself and therefore
civilization. This is the sous-entendu shared by Sophocles' audience
and the author. Ajax could have accomplished no more than the
murder of men in his mad attack on the army. Instead, he undoes the
power of ritualized killing of animals by exposing its function as a
substitute for the internecine violence of man against man.37 In reality
no individual could do that, just as no single man could be responsible
for a plague.38 But Sophocles poses the civilizing role of sacrificial
violence as a problem concerning Ajax, so that the audience may
mistake the real problem and fall into the trap of answering the wrong
question. The question is not "What kind of man is Ajax?" but "What
kind of act is sacrifice?" The latter question admits of no solution
apart from the audience's reactions to the unfolding of Ajax' tragedy.
When the audience next sees Ajax, he has risen from his car-
nage. He walks toward center stage; ignoring Tecmessa and his crew,
he begins to speak: "All things unseen, vast time immensurable makes
35 Segal 1981.41-42.
36 Schol. Ar. Lys. 645: the bear is slain by a man enraged over its mutilation of his
sister.
37 Cf. Arist. Pol. 1253a34-38: "Man by nature has weapons for high-mindedness and
virtue which may be used for opposite ends. Without virtue man is most unholy and
savage and the worst toward sexual passion and food." Ajax meant to slaughter
the whole army not its leaders alone; see Rosivach 1975.201-2.
38 Girard 1974.842-43.
grow and hides when revealed"

stage and in the theater.39 The
his appearance or by what follo
with the bloodied (30) sword in
play have been flabbergasted. H
about suicide; is he submitting
unaltered resolve to die and for some reason (to save Tecmessa's
feelings or to get away by himself) is misleading his wife and crew on
purpose? The dilemma of Ajax' Trugrede (646-92) has been expressed
by Ignacio Errandonea as follows:
Some do not imagine that a hero like Ajax can lie. Others
do not admit that a hero of this type can change. The
former make him sincere but changing; the latter, a liar,
capable of change. These two pivots control all current
opinions.40
The dilemma has been created by the critics' subjective views of Ajax
and by the psychological fallacy that the Sophoclean Ajax existed as
a personality before and apart from the text of the play. From their
conceptions of Ajax and of the hero in general, critics have locked
themselves into an impasse of their own making.
Ajax tells us in the speech what he is going to do: "I am going
to the washing places and meadows by the sea so that, by cleansing
my defilements, I may escape the goddess' heavy wrath" (654-55).
When he reappears, the audience watches Ajax fix Hector's sword
in the ground and (however it was staged) leap upon it. Ajax does not
simply kill himself, however; he sacrifices himself, the sword becoming
his butcher-priest, his sacrificer-killer (815). Ajax goes to the meadows
to sacrifice himself, and only Sophocles in the second episode knew
that would be the manner of his death in the third episode . We must,
therefore, ask new questions: What contribution does Ajax' speech
make to the actions of departing, purifying, and sacrificing? How
does the speech relate to the ideology of sacrifice? What patterns or
strategies does Sophocles intend the speech to embody?
39 Seale 1982.158: "Tecmessa and the Chorus are there to listen, but the impression is
soliloquy.** See Knox 1961.12-13. In any case, all hear Ajax.
40 Errandonea 1958.58. For bibliography see Moore 1977.47-54; Sicherl 1977.67-89;
Segal 1981.432 n.9.
In the previous scene Tecmessa describes f

his family left bereft of his protection. At the t
effect, but during the stasimon they apparently
I, too, who used to do dreadful deeds of pow

the dipping of iron, begin to be womanize
by this woman. I pity leaving her widowed
orphaned among enemies (650-53).
Out of pity for Tecmessa Ajax suggests that h

has been softened as has his mouth (axópa) in
Welcker rightly contends that Ajax has ch
genuinely pities his wife and son.41 Ajax is d
Tecmessa , he is still determined to die , and he s
son that he will not declare his intentions outrig
his pity cuts two ways: has he taken such pity
live, or, is he still determined to die (see 473-80)
speech provides no inkling of the conclusion
based on Ajax' situation and character have b
general agreement. In the absence of other m
ception as deliberate, no explanation of this sc
In the tension between the expectations of sa
Ajax' speech we have that means.
Sopatros, as we have seen, rids himself of po
Apollo and substituting an ox for himself. A mor
trickery and substitution occurs in the foundatio
rites at Munichia.43 The Delphic oracle dem
Athenians sacrifice his daughter as recomp
of Artemis' bear. Embaros agrees and bring
temple to offer her. Instead, he hides her away a
her clothing, sacrifices it. Artemis' anger is a
is immolated - while the girl's life is spared
proper victim. Sophocles inverts these strateg
to substitute himself in place of a victim. Sophoc
lie directly, since, as author, he knows that Ajax
41 Welcker 1973.313; also Sicherl 1977.91; Taplin 1979.12

42 For the ambivalence of stoma see Jebb 1896.103; Kamb
1963.144.
43 Suda s.v. Embaros eimi. For a study of the myths of human sacrifice, particularly that
of Iphigenia, associated with Artemis, see Henrichs 1981.198-208.
is more than the sum of his roles

He is homo necans. As such, A
sacrificer cannot lie about killin
But he does willfully deceive hims
That is what Ajax homo necans i
in terms of the ideology, the subj
as the speech is inconclusive. By
more than one reading, Ajax dec
not about to murder himself. Un
substitute himself for a victim, an
to be tricked in order to go "vo
victim and donor become one th
Ajax' speech comes at the poi
at hand would be sought from
angry; a cure must be sought f
Sopatros and Embaros which rep
But Ajax prescribes his own cur
multivalent words of an oracle,
tion seems an afterthought.46 T
that would end her wrath again
The function of Athena's revelat
speech. Pity and concern for hi
Ajax' deception. Deception is pro
the play - the complex of oracl
deconstructing. Ajax changes w
without lying.
The sword looms larger in Aja
owes its prominence to Sophocle
44 This responds to Moore's (1977.55)

speech of such systematic double entend
45 A clear instance of such self-decepti
shakes its head when wet with water
cautious (or pious) regarding all wrong
for favorable omens to engage Mardoniu
losses from Persian arrows (Hdt. 9.61.
46 See Lattimore's (1958.73) puzzlement
sometimes writes as if he had been re
suddenly realized that he had left som
with the strategy of scapegoating.47 Ajax would h

some trackless spot (655-56), but the sword cannot be banished.
Neither is it innocent. Its complicity with Ajax in slaughtering the
animals is underlined by the imagery of light and dark. The sword is,
at first, a "gleaming iron" (147), "blazing ruin to the heavens" (195);
later Ajax becomes himself the "gleaming man" (222) who slays with
"dark swords" (231). Positioned like the knife in the Bouphonia be-
tween the slaying of animals and the threatened slaying of a man, the
sword does not protect Ajax by assuming the blame. It is made by
Sophocles to negate the strategy of scapegoating in that nothing
unique, nothing different, may be said of it without its opposite being
also true. The sword is the "gift of Hector, most hated and hostile of
[Ajax'] Çévoi" (817-18). It is a "no-gift gift" (665), for Ajax considers
that he is being slain by Hector's sword (817-18). The sword belongs
simultaneously to both men and to neither. Moreover, it fails to es-
tablish for Ajax and Hector differences that distinguish Diomedes and
Glaucon as Çévoi from other enemies on the battlefield. The sword
has a personality,48 an identity as CKpayeúç, "murderer/sacrificer,"
whose "very kind" (822) nature is doubled as friend in ending Ajax'
shame, and as enemy in ending his life. "The steady immovable sword
on which he kills himself," Bernard Knox asserts, "is the one fixed
point in the world of which change and movement are the only modes
of existence."49 For ordinary men that would be so; friends become
enemies, and enemies, friends, and throughout the shifts opposites
remain opposite and distinct. But the sword is no ordinary weapon,
and Ajax no ordinary man. When he impales himself upon it, what
appears vivid theater for the fixation of differences is undercut by
Sophocles through the doubleness of man and sword. The sword is
no enemy but a friend, no friend but an enemy, and Ajax dies no
ordinary death.
47 Ajax' weapon in epic is the shield (Horn. II. 7.219-23). On the symbolism of the
sword see Bowra 1944.44-45; Stanford 1963.278, who finds no adequate explanation
for its prominence; Cohen 1978.26-34; Segal 1980.126-29.
48 Personification of the sword as sphageus (815) and phoneus (1026), noted by Jebb
1896.128 and Kamberbeek 1963.168, surely includes the notion of sacrificial killer,
as Stanford 1963.166 suggests. Moreover, the personification recalls that of the
knife which is treated as a member of the community and participant in the sacrifice.
49 Knox 1961.20.
Here Sophocles takes advantage

with Ajax' cult in Athens and Sala
his family terminates with his life (
life and death. Sophocles transfor
equivalent to the hero's tomb, so
from the dead Ajax the protection
scene evokes the tableau of the ox
and set again at the plow; in both
the living. Even the "hostile land o
fixed is doubled as "springs, these
Ajax claims, are his "nurses" (862-
Ajax sacrifices himself in a rite m
fying waters with blood. His is a pri
boundaries of the community on
speaks of Ajax' rite as one "by whi
Athena and is reconciled with her
about Athena and Ajax in the nex
Ajax is no scapegoat. Far from en
of himself cries for vengeance: "Com
[blood] and spare not the army,
Sophocles reduces the harmony th
ritual communications to the coin
sword hidden in Ajax' body.
In deconstructing sacrifice, So
period of murder and cannibalism
contradictory tradition of its ori
that [men] hide the dead in tombs
buried corpses, and that they not
impious reminder of [men's] feast
the éxodos Sophocles shows a comm
50 For Ajax as hero, see Famell 1921.305-1

xxxii; Rosenmeyer 1963.186-87.
51 For Teucer's tableau (1171-81) as a ritua
142-43.
52 Segal 1981.140.
53 Sicherl 1977.95.
54 For Ajax* suicide for vengeance, see De
55 Moschion fr. 6 in Nauck, TGF 813-14 an
sources, see Lovejoy and Boas 200-21.
on the brink of descending into the savager

(1062-65). The unburied Ajax confuses corps
living, and lower world with upper world. Fro
effacement of differences brought about
radiates outward to become the reciprocal v
scenes reproduce the cascading accusations
absence of a Sopatros or a knife to channe
men. There is no second half to the Ajax ,
Atreidae and Teucer threatens verbally, as A
to sweep away the differences that constitu
The first distinction to be lost is that
Phrygian (that is, Greek/barbarian, friend
bring [Ajax] from home as an ally and fri
more hostile than the Phrygians" (1052-
appear in the verbal violence:
Ruler/ruled
M. If we could not have power over him in life,

we shall rule him in death (1067-68).
T. Did he not sail out, having power over him-
self (1099)? . . . There is no right of rule laid
down for you to marshal him more than for
him to marshal you (1103-4).
Burial rites/exposure, the two meanings of rcpoi)Keipe0(a)

(1059)
M. We would have died the fate which this man
has drawn and have been exposed/buried in
a most disgraceful death.
Fear and shame/outrage

M. The laws would not fare well where no fear
has been established, nor would the army be

led sensibly without the restraint of fear and
modesty (1073-76). . . . The man was before a
gleaming outrage, but now I have high
thoughts.
Ch. Menelaus, you have laid down wise views. Do

not become yourself an outrage on the dead
(1092-93).
T. I have seen a man full of foolishness who acts

outrageously amid the misfortunes of neigh-
bors (1151-52).
Noble/commoner
T. Never again will I be amazed, men, at a man

whose parents are nobodies and who goes
astray, since those who claim to be of noble
birth speak such erroneous words in their
arguments (1093-96).
Bow/shield
M. The bowman seems to think no small thoughts.
T. Yes, I have no ignoble skill.

M. How big you would boast if you had a shield.
T. Naked, I would be a match for you fully armed
(1120-23).
Right/right, living/dead
T. With the right on your side you can think
high thoughts.
M. Was it right that [Ajax] kill me and prosper?
T. Killed? You speak strangely, indeed; if dead,

you are also alive.
M. The god saves me, but I'm gone in his opinion.
T. Do not dishonor the gods, after they saved
you (115-31).
Polemios/echthros in the confounding of hostis and inimicus.

M. I myself do not allow anyone to bury enemies.
T. Did Ajax really stand before you as an enemy

(1132-33)?
Agamemnon enters, enraged at the affront to his sovereignty

(1226-35). He is already gripped by the oscillating violence of charge
and countercharge that held his brother and Teucer. Stanford's
observation that "as usual one of the Atreidae acts as if he were
identical with the other,"56 assumes added me

it refers to a scene made of lost identities. Agam
"Men of good understanding prevail every
threat: "The great, broad ox nevertheless goes
at the urging of a little goad. I see this remedy c
unless you get some sense" (1235-56). He accu
"You are acting outrageously, boldly, and runn
Won't you learn moderation" (1258-59)? The C
ance for the scene: "O, that there would be the se
learn moderation" (1264). Anger belies any
and the process of effacement continues:
Noble birth/slave birth

A. You, I mean the one born from a captive wom-
an. Surely were you nourished from a noble
mother, you would boast proud and strut with
your nose in the air (1228-30).
T. I am sired from my father Telamón, a man

who excelled in the host and gained my mother
as his consort. She was of royal blood, the
daughter of Laomedon (1299-1302).
Barbaros/ Greek
A. I can no longer understand you when you
speak. I do not comprehend barbarian tongues
(1262-63).
T. Do you not know that your father's father

was old Pelops, a barbarian from Phrygia
(1291-92)?. . . You yourself were begotten from
a Cretan mother . . . (1295).
Ajax as fighter/ Agamemnon as fighter

A. Where did he go or where did he stand that I
did not also go (1237).
T. Was it not he doing these things who you say
went nowhere that you did not also go (1280-
81)?
56 Stanford 1963.211. Furthermore, both Atreidae were likely played by the same
actor. See Pavlovskis 1977.116-17.
The first agon ends (1 159-60) w

in threats, and the second is ha
rival of Odysseus.57 Teucer, Ag
tried to assert something unique a
about his antagonist. They fail,
destroying the categories and p
Teucer's claim, for example, th
the armed hoplite goes in the fa
times against the bow and subvert
free as opposed to Persian and s
this sort in a real situation may
of the Corcyrean revolution
meaning of words with a view t
right" (3.83.4). Tragedy imitate
prepared his ending.
During the prologue Sophocl
reciprocal violence: "I see that w
and empty shadows" (125-26)
above the violence ignited by th
this end" (1365). Odysseus' role
sacrifice, and his humanity and g
Heracles' divinity in Philoctetes
Sophocles ends a conflict that h
to do so.59 Unlike the others, O
lost sight of the distinction be
before them: "This man is an en
Another difference exists on st
1231) but ignore in their rage: A
ocles justifies Odysseus' interve
mortality (1365-67), but it is th
re-erects differences. The agon
ence and the scapegoating of th
57 On the agones at the end of Ajax , se

58 Bow: Horn. 11. 4.242; 11.384-95; Eur.
Tyrtaeuo fr. 10; also Eur. HF 190-92; A
39 This explains the lack of a dramatic r
toward Odysseus (1316-17). See Stanf
structure of the agon. See Holt 1981.28
performs the function of the scapegoat; buri

from the community of one whose presence
lishes civilized order, for human beings bury
Ouaia, Bouphonia, and Ajax encode an id
forms the murder of animals into sacrifice. The
transmitted in the way of ritual; senders and re
audience are one and the same. Strategies of
succeed since the participants are deceiving th
audience of Sophocles' Ajax, familiar as they a
fice, do not control what is happening before
to the self-trickery of their rituals even as th
ocles' having thoroughly sweetened (persuasum
into something wrong with Ajax. Preoccupie
Ajax, they face without having to admit the g
pretense and hypocrisy, and that is the catharis
Michigan State University
60 For a different view of the catharsis of Ajax , see Niče
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Adams, S. M. 1955. "The Ajax of Sophocles," Phoenix 9.93-11

Belfiore, Elizabeth. 1983/84. "Aristotle's Concept of Praxis in th
Poeticsr CJ 79. 110-24.
Bowra, C. M. 1944. Sophoclean Tragedy . Oxford.
Burian, Peter. 1972. "Supplication and Hero Cult in Sophocle
Ajax," GRBS 13.151-56.
Burkert, Walter. 1966. "Greek Tragedy and Sacrificial Ritua
GRBS 7.87-121.
Los Angeles and London.

Cohen, David. 1978. "The Imagery
Suicide," G&R 25.24-36.
Delcourt, Marie. 1939. "Le suicid
ancienne," Revue de l'Hist
154-71.
Detienne, Marcel. 1977a. Dionysos m
London.
Deubner, Ludwig. 1966, orig. 1932. Attische Feste. Hildsheim.

Errandonea, Ignacio. 1958. "Les quatre monologues d 'Ajax et leur
signification dramatique," LEC 36.21-40.
Fraenkel, Eduard. 1950. Aeschylus. Agamemnon. Oxford.
Gellie, G. H. 1972. Sophocles: A Reading. Melbourne.
Gernet, Louis. 1981. The Anthropology of Ancient Greece, transi. John
Hamilton, S.J. and Blaise Nagy. Baltimore and
London.
Girard, René. 1974. "The Plague in Literature and Myth," Texas

Studies in Literature and Language 15.833-50.
Baltimore and London.

Guépin, J.-P. 1968. The Tragic Paradox : Myth and Ritual in Greek
Tragedy. Amsterdam.
The Unity of Sophocles' Ajax ill
Henrichs, Albert. 1981. "Human Sacrifice in

Case Studies," Le Sacrifice dans l'a
tretiens sur l'antiquité classique
Geneva.
Holt, Philip. 1981. "The Debate Scenes in the Ajax j' AJP 102.273-88.
Jebb. R. C. 1896. Sophocles. The Ajax. Cambridge.
Jones, John. 1971. On Aristotle and Greek Tragedy. London.
Kamberbeek, J. C. 1963. The Plays of Sophocles. Part I. The Ajax.
Leiden.
Kirkwood, G. M. 1958. A Study of Sophoclean Drama. Ithaca.
Kitto, H. D. F. 1954. Greek Tragedy. Garden City, New York.
Knox, Bernard, M.S. 1961. "The Ajax of Sophocles," HSCP 65. 1-37.
Kott, Jan. 1972. The Eating of the Gods : An Interpretation of Greek
Tragedy. New York.
Leach, Edmund. 1976. Culture and Communication. Cambridge.
Lovejoy, Arthur O. and George Boas. 1973. Primitivism and Related
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Meuli, Karl. 1946. "Griechische Opferbraüche," Phyllobolia für Peter
von der Mühll. 185-288. Basel.
Moore, John. 1957. Sophocles II, edd. David Grene and Richmond
Lattimore. Chicago and London.
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Ničev, Alexandre. 1970. L'énigme de la catharsis tragique dans Aris-
totle. Sofia.
Nilsson, Martin P. 1955. Geschichte der griechischen Religion I.
Munich.
Parke, H. W. 1977. Festivals of the Athenians. London.
Pavlovskis, Zoja. 1977. "The Voice of the Actor in Greek Tragedy,"
CW 71.113-23.
Pearson, A. C. 1922. "Sophocles, Ajax 961-973," CQ 16.124-36.
Redfield, James M. 1975. Nature and Culture in the Iliad: The Tragedy
of Hector. Chicago and London.
Reinhardt, Karl. 1947. Sophokles. 3rd ed. Frankfurt a. M.
Rosenmeyer, Thomas G. 1963. The Masks of Tragedy: Essays on Six
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Geneva.
Seale, David. 1982. Vision and St

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Segal, Charles. 1980. "Visual Symbolism and Visual Effects in Soph-

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Sophocles . Cambridge, Mas

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Sicherl, M. 1977. "The Tragic Issue

98.
Simon, Erika. 1983. Festivals of Attica . Madison.

Stanford, W. B. 1963. Sophocles . Ajax. London.
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Arktouros, edd. Glen W. Bow

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Vernant, Jean-Pierre and Pierre Vidal-Naquet. 1972. Mythe et tra-
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Scuola Normale di P
7.105-40.
mort dans la Ouoia gre

l'antiquité , Entretiens sur
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Waldock, A. J. A. 1966. Sophocles the Dramatist. Cambridge.
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Ziehen, Ludwig. 1939. RE 18.1 s.v. "Opfer." 579-627.
APPENDIX
What Is Wrong With Ajax?
In considering the unity of Ajax the question "what is wrong

with Ajax?" has proved misleading. Too great attention paid to Ajax'
character as a unifying element for the play not only emphasizes th
abnormal and historically remote1 at the expense of the norm, th
community made up of the Atreidae and the others, but it also cause
the let down and the feeling of the play as a diptych. For Sophocles
characterization of Ajax and his exploration of the Homeric/aristo
cratic code Ajax embodies, however, the question is a valid one.
Athena casts "notions hard to resist upon [Ajax'] eyes (51-52),
but she does not cause his madness and suicide.2 They derive from
his own mind. Ajax recognizes the goddess' intervention for what it
is: the reason "I bloodied my hands on such beasts as these" (451-53)
He laments his enemies' escape (454-56). Athena, moreover, affects
his vision at the generals' camp after he has left his hut "burdene
with anger over Achilles' arms (41) and while he was already "pacing
with mad sicknesses" (59). Calchas later attributes Athena's wrath to
Ajax' prideful self-sufficiency in rejecting her support (749-80). But
the goddess vents her anger in a night and a day; on the other hand
Ajax' madness reaches back in time for its causes to his youth i
Salamis. After a careful reading of the first stasimon, R. P. Win-
nington-Ingram comes to this conclusion:
But if the words mean what they seem to say, then the poet
is suggesting, through the subtleties of his lyric diction, that
1 Brown 1951; Knox 1961.24-28: "Ajax belongs to a world which for Sophocles and
his audience had passed away - an aristocratic, heroic, half-mythic world. . ." (25).
The mythic representatives of those values passed away but the values themselves
continued to be influential for behavior (Adkins 1960.156-62) and for the medium of
tragedy (Vernant 1970).
2 Simpson 1969.88-92.
the nosos , which was the atē of

long-fostered disease, bound u
with his ouvxpocpoi ôpyaí; tha
grown with Ajax during his li
life has bred.3
Winnington-Ingram finds in C
that "something that his life h
maniac pride."4 Ajax breaks d
Odysseus, because the final oppo
has been lost, but, Winnington-
ness were already in him."5 Aja
time it has caught him. Winning
of Ajax' madness but not of his
do without the gods.
The source of Ajax' problem
ethic itself; its foremost examp
divine aid. But Ajax goes unatten
at Troy; he is the protecting sh
1 1.548-57) with the stubbornness o
whose foundations rest, as he hi
No one will drive me back by hi

force or skill, since I expect t
in Salamis so unskilled (Horn.
Agamemnon knows of Telamón

was prominent in Homer's devel
and Teucer. Sophocles transpose
cal strain on Ajax of having a he
his father."6 He closely links Aj
difficult lines of the first stasimo
perhaps in the sense of place as w
family,"7 while his disaster (fix
3 Winnington-Ingram 1980.32-38; the q

4 Winnington-Ingram 1980.41.
5 Winnington-Ingram 1980.41.
6 Stanford 1963.xiii.
7 Kamberbeek 1963.132; Stanford 1963.140-41.
sons of Aeacus never yet nurtured apart from

find the source of Ajax' pride and, thus, what
must look to his relationship with his father.
In wanting Achilles' weapons to prove
Ajax acts like a Homeric hero, a man who defines
of how much others approve of him.8 For Ajax,
approval is not the army but, specifically and
Telamón. The Scholiast on 434 remarks: "He t
his father's successes passionately. . . ." Durin
against Troy Heracles awarded Telamón wi
of its king Laomedon (Diod. 4.32.5; Apollod. 2
the Homeric Ajax cannot understand why Ach
woman" when he is being offered "seven best
38), the Sophoclean Ajax privileges Telamon's
a hyperbole, xà rcpcoxa KaMiaxeï' ápiaxeóaa
the gift of Hesione, a beautiful woman, and n
warlike feat of entering Troy first (Apollod. 2.6.
of glory" Ajax later calls Hesione (465) who i
Teucer's. Ajax, it is evident, esteems Telamon
portion and without regard for what Telamó
given a woman.
Ajax believes that the son should imitate t
Lift him [Eurysaces], lift him here. He wil

of seeing this newly slaughtered gore if he
in what he has from his father. He must i
broken like a colt in the savage ways of hi
made like him in nature. O son, be more f
your father, but in all else be like him (545
As long as Eurysaces remains ignorant of joy

his "mother's delight" (559), but when he rea
expects "you must see to it that you will show w
what sort of father you were nurtured, amid
Ajax came to Troy for that purpose, oïoç
to leave, laden like his father with glory:
8 Dodds 1951.17-18; Adkins 1960.48-49. For the Homeric

21: Kirkwood 1965.53-63.
My father from the Trojan la

of the booty and came home,
son, to this same Troyland ha
strength and having performe
I perish thus dishonored amon
Ajax has looked to his father, ap

sort of man he himself is. His desire for the arms of Achilles is not so
much his desire as a desire aroused in imitation9 of what his father
has achieved. When he fails to imitate his father by obtaining "every
glory," he imagines himself naked before him:
What sort of eye (oppa) shall I show my father Telamón

when I appear? How shall he endure to look upon me, ap-
pearing naked, without prizes of valour, for which he
himself had a mighty garland of glory (462-65)?
More is implied in the image of nakedness than "without armour

and arms."10 Ajax pictures himself a new-born child; without the
weapons, he has not merely lost face (oppa) but his Telamonian
(púaiç, his very being, which he must somehow prove to his father:
Some attempt must be sought whereby I shall show the old

man, my father, that I was not born from him gutless in
nature (tpóaiç) (470-72).
9 This refers to Girarďs 1977.145-49 concept of mimetic desire: "In all the varieties of
desire examined by us, we have encountered not only a subject and an object but a
third presence as well: the rival. It is the rival who should be accorded the dominant
role. . . . The rival desires the same object as the subject, and to assert the primacy of
the rival can lead only to one conclusion. Rivalry does not arise because of a fortu-
itous convergence of two desires on a single object; rather, the subject desires be-
cause the rival desires it. In desiring an object the rival alerts the subject to the desir-
ability of the object. The rival, then, serves as a model for the subject, not only in
regard of such secondary matters as style and opinions but also, and more essentially,
in regard to desires" (145) [Girard's italics]. Ajax as subject desires what he deems
his father and rival desires - glory, Achilles* weapons being the means to the object.
10 Stanford 1963.118. Simon 1978.128 realizes the destructiveness of Ajax* parental
bond: "He [Ajax] sees himself as unable to return home to his heroic father, having
achieved less honor than he.** Simon*s observation (130) of "Ajax as a kind of 'only
child* who goes beserk when his rivals get more than he does** is consistent with the
mechanics of mimetic rivalry: Ajax' father is his chief and primary rival.
Homeric society and its counterpart in the

Sophocles' Athens were founded upon com
all.11 As a man strove to be first among men, he
and more famous than his father. Such is Hector's wish for his son
Astyanax (Horn. II 6.479). The son, to prove his paternal parts, his
xá 7caxpó06v (547), had to leave his father and father's household
and risk his life in war; Achilles and Ajax come to Troy, while Hector,
who soon afterwards will isolate himself from his father (Horn. II. 22.
77-78), imagines his son "coming up [to the city] from the fighting"
(//. 6.480). Yet the son must also survive the fighting to inherit his
father's property and possessions and to pass them on to his own son,
a twofold imperative that is the dilemma embedded in the warrior
ethic.12
Ajax strives to be better than Telamón, but he rivals, not Tela-
món, but a father he has idealized beyond life. Sophocles makes this
point by the stark contrast between Telamon's command, "Be strong
always with god" (765), and Ajax' rebuff, "Father, any man, a noth-
ing, could possess power with the gods. I am sure I will get this glory
even apart from them" (767-69). The source of Ajax' imbalance -
what is wrong with him and what others perceive as pride - is his
desire to be better than a father who exists in Ajax' desires for Tela-
mon's glory as it never was. TeXapcovioç Aïaç, like nr|Xeí8r|ç 'Axi^~
keúç, expresses the tension between Saípcov or destiny as defined
by past members of the family, and fjOoç, individual character.
When Achilles acts in accord with the nature and social role laid
down by his father, he is Peleides and Aeacides; when he fails to fol-
low his father's advice, he becomes Achilles.13 Most characteristic
of Achilles is his wrath; most striking in Ajax' character is his desire
to be Telamõnios - to be "like (-ios) Telamón." Apart from that
drive, itself one esteemed by the norms and values of his culture,
Ajax is without being until he discovers his identity and the measure
of his humanity in his woeful cries of aiaï (430, 432). 14 In the epic the
11 Adkins 1960.32-36, 46-48, 156-58; Gouldner 1965.49-55.

12 Redfield 1975.99-101 and 122-27.
13 Benardete 1963.12.
14 For the connection between his name and his fate, see Kamberbeek 1963.95-96.
father is the source of continuit

portrays the father as the focus o
the lack of restraints on the son
alone on the shore, resolves the
from his culture, even as he w
his son.
15 The Iliad , as Greene 1963.47 says is "a great poem of fatherhood." Pater, as used in
similes, expresses the love of the father for his son; Horn. II. 9.481-82, 24.770; Ody.
2.47, 17.397; Gates 1971.5. For the father in the Iliad , see Redfleld 1975.110-13;
Finlay 1980.267-73.
ADDITIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
Adkins, Arthur W. H. 1960. Merit and Responsibility . Oxford.

Benardete, Seth. 1963. "Achilles and Iliad," Hermes 91.1-16.
Brown, Norman O. 1951. "Pindar, Sophocles, and the Thirty Y
Peace," TAPA 82.1-28.
Dodds, E. R. 1951. The Greeks and the Irrational . Berkeley an
Angeles.
Finlay, Robert. 1980. "Patroklos, Achilleus, and Peleus: Fathers and
Sons in the Iliadi CW 73.267-73.
Gates, Henry Phelps. 1971. The Kinship Terminology of Homer's
Greek , Indiana University Publications in Anthro-
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THE UNITY OF SOPHOCLES' "AJAX"

Author(s): WM. BLAKE TYRRELL

WM. BLAKE TYRRELL

Sophocles' Ajax has long puzzled critics because it seems to fa

1 Schol. ad 1123; Webster 1963.102-3; Bowra 1944.18; Whitman 1951.63; Kirkwo

ARETHUSA VOL. 18 (1985) 2.

even had Sophocles not used sac

and civilized implied by Sophocles. Sophocl

cannot be eaten. Eating was an e

[T]he exile in Crete will redeem these [barrenness and

14 Rudhardt 1958.289-90; Detienne 1977a. 178-79.

Drought and barrenness as physical phenomena bring about the ex-

Sopatros reckoned that he would be released from the

Sopatros acts like a sacrificer at a time when, as depicted by

19 Girard 1974.833-45 and 1977.76-77.

be slayer. But what is murder w

Assembling a trial for murder, they summoned everyone

innocent/guilty where no such difference i

22 Girard 1977.43-49 and Chapters 1-4 passim.

prospect of revelation."26 The audi

He cut the throats [a<páÇ (s)] of some on the ground in-

Turning others upward, he cut their throats [ëa<paÇe]

£a<paÇe in line 299 (and so probably in 235), because of the drawing

sacrifice. Yet Ajax' victims contradict the terms

I have never heard the like before from h

Sophocles intensifies Tecmessa's report of Ajax' screams by cries of

2g Stengl 1910.92-101; Rudhardt 1958.272-75.

During Guaia, at the moment w

has been sought by prayers and by the immolati

grow and hides when revealed"

In the previous scene Tecmessa describes f

I, too, who used to do dreadful deeds of pow

Out of pity for Tecmessa Ajax suggests that h

41 Welcker 1973.313; also Sicherl 1977.91; Taplin 1979.12

is more than the sum of his roles

44 This responds to Moore's (1977.55)

with the strategy of scapegoating.47 Ajax would h

Here Sophocles takes advantage

50 For Ajax as hero, see Famell 1921.305-1

on the brink of descending into the savager

M. If we could not have power over him in life,

Burial rites/exposure, the two meanings of rcpoi)Keipe0(a)

Fear and shame/outrage

has been established, nor would the army be

Ch. Menelaus, you have laid down wise views. Do

T. I have seen a man full of foolishness who acts

T. Never again will I be amazed, men, at a man

T. Yes, I have no ignoble skill.

M. Was it right that [Ajax] kill me and prosper?

T. Killed? You speak strangely, indeed; if dead,

Polemios/echthros in the confounding of hostis and inimicus.

T. Did Ajax really stand before you as an enemy

Agamemnon enters, enraged at the affront to his sovereignty

identical with the other,"56 assumes added me

Noble birth/slave birth

T. I am sired from my father Telamón, a man

T. Do you not know that your father's father

Ajax as fighter/ Agamemnon as fighter

The first agon ends (1 159-60) w

57 On the agones at the end of Ajax , se

performs the function of the scapegoat; buri

Michigan State University

60 For a different view of the catharsis of Ajax , see Niče

Adams, S. M. 1955. "The Ajax of Sophocles," Phoenix 9.93-11