Ajax: Did you mean...?

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...

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)

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 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...

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...

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...

More free lessons at: http://www.khanacademy.org/video?v=k2fdtepbkz8 A conversation between Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker in front of an Attic black figure amphora by Exekias (potter and painter), c. 540-530 B.C.E., 61.1 cm high...

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...

The act of voluntary death was never condemned in antiquity. In fact, The English word "suicide" comes from the Latin for "self-slaying." The reason for a voluntary death had to be one that was honorable and necessary to remove any element...