CHAPTER V.
THE DEATH OF AJAX.
Of all heroic families, perhaps none were more famous than that of the Æacidæ, to which Ajax, the hero of this tragedy, belonged, Æacus, the founder of the race, was a son of Jove, and he married a daughter of the centaur Chiron, from whom two sons were born to him, Peleus and Telamon. Peleus married the sea-nymph, "silver-footed" Thetis, and by her had Achilles; while Telamon took to wife Eribœa, who bore him Ajax. The cousins were both mighty warriors, renowned beyond all the other Greeks in the siege of Troy; but in character and appearance they were as different as Athelstane and Ivanhoe. Achilles was the true knight of chivalry, brave, graceful, and courteous, but high-spirited and passionate. Ajax was a man of war, of huge bulk and ponderous strength, taller than all the rest by the head and shoulders. More than once his single right arm had saved the army from destruction,—
"Stemming the war as stems a torrent's force
Some wooded cliff far reaching o'er the plain,"[1]—
- ↑ Lord Derby's Homer, Il. xvii. 847.
