¹ ‘The Tragic Homer’, BICS 31 (1984), 8.Google Scholar

² ‘Loyalty in the Iliad’, Papers of the Leeds International Latin Seminar 6 (1990), 211–27.Google Scholar

³ Initially through Adkins, A. W. H., Merit and Responsibility (Oxford, 1960), pp. 30–60Google Scholar; see Zanker, art. cit. (n. 2), for the subsequent literature.

⁴ Discussions of the influence of the Homeric view of heroism on the Ajax include Knox, B. M. W., ‘The Ajax of Sophocles’, HSCP 65 (1961), 1–37Google Scholar; Winnington-Ingram, R. P., Sophocles: An Interpretation (Cambridge, 1980), pp. 15–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gould, J., ‘Homeric Epic and the Tragic Moment’, in Aspects of the Epic, ed. Winnifrith, T., Murray, P. and Gransden, K. W. (London, 1983), 32–45, esp. 38–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Easterling, art. cit. (n. 1); Goldhill, S., Reading Greek Tragedy (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 154–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Easterling, P. E., ‘Notes on Tragedy and Epic’, in Papers given at a Colloquium on Greek Drama in Honour of R. P. Winnington-Ingram, ed. Rodley, L. (London, 1987), 52–61.Google Scholar

⁵ The need for a restraining influence on Achilles is also implied in Menoetius' parting admonition to his son, Patroclus, quoted by Nestor at Il. 11.785–9.

⁶ N.b. 127–33 (Athene on αωφροσύνη). It is noteworthy that Ajax' ὕβρις is absent from his words at Il. 17.634, but that the concept is present in the Odyssey, when, at 4.504, the Locrian Ajax defiantly asserts that he will cross the sea in safety κητι θεν; Sophocles seems to have transferred the ὕβρις of the Locrian Ajax to the Telamonian; see Kamerbeek, J. C., The Plays of Sophocles, Part I: The Ajax (Leiden, 1953)Google Scholar on lines 767, 768. The handling of the ὕβρις theme in the Ajax has most recently been discussed by Crane, G., ‘Ajax, the Unexpected, and the Deception Speech’, CP 85 (1990), 89–101, esp. 99–101Google Scholar; prior studies of Sophocles' fifth-century perspective on Homeric heroism will be found in the works detailed above, n. 4.

⁷ The effect of Ajax' dishonour on his followers, moreover, graphically illustrates the socially competitive aspect of shame: at 141–7, 154–61, 173f. and 187–91 the Chorus of Ajax' men bewail their insignificance as σμικροί and their consequent inability to defend themselves on a competitive level against the charges of dishonour to which their master has exposed them.

⁸ With ironic appropriateness, therefore, it is the δρον of Ajax' enemy Hector, the sword given to him by the Trojan when they ceased hostilities at Il. 7.303ff., with which Ajax chooses to end his life (815–22); ever since he obtained it from Hector, he has received nothing κεδνόν from the Achaeans, which on the heroic logic of esteem must include any gift (661–5). Moreover, Sophocles makes Hector and Ajax ξένοι as a result of the exchange, so the sword is a ξένιον, and the dramatist can play on the incongruity of the inauspiciousness of the gift (665), and of the idea of a ξένος being ‘most hated’ (817f.); see Herman, G., Ritualised Friendship and the Greek City (Cambridge, 1987), p. 60 n. 56Google Scholar, with Easterling, art. cit. (n. 1), 6f. The case of Hector, whom Sophocles makes receive Ajax' belt after the duel, is similarly ironic, for the belt is used to bind Hector's corpse to Achilles' chariot; together with the irony of Hector's gift to Ajax, it makes Teucer conclude that the gods have planned the neat coincidence (1028–39).

⁹ See Easterling, art. cit. (n. 1), 1–5.

¹⁰ Her reminiscence of Hector's τις-Rede powerfully amplifies the shame/honour aspect of her appeal; on τις-Reden see Wilson, J. R., ‘Kαί κε τις ὧδ' ρέει: An Homeric Device in Greek Literature’, Illinois Classical Studies 4 (1979), 1–15Google Scholar; de Jong, I. J. F., ‘The Voice of Anonymity; tis-speeches in the Iliad’, Eranos 85 (1987), 69–84.Google Scholar

¹¹ Il. 24.486–94; see esp. 487, with which compare Aj. 506f., for the similarity of phrasing on the γρας of Peleus and Telamon.

¹² Cf. his low estimation of men who weep, reported by Tecmessa at 319f., and his impatience with the tearfulness of women, expressed at 525–8 and 578–82.

¹³ See Easterling, art. cit. (n. 1), 5f. on the limited but real softening of Ajax' attitude to his φίλοι which is discernible in the Deception Speech; see now also Crane, art. cit. (n. 6), 89–101, esp. 94–9 (with lit.).

¹⁴ The motif is also used in connection with Tecmessa, when she is made to say that she has been cast out of τς παλαις χάριτος (807f.).

¹⁵ See Adkins, A. W. H., Moral Values and Political Behaviour in Ancient Greece (London, 1972), pp. 65–7.Google Scholar

¹⁶ In the Philoctetes of 409 we observe Sophocles in some ways reduplicating the scheme of values that he explores in the Ajax. He reflects not only on his sources from epic, in particular the Cypria, Little Iliad and Iliu Persis, but also on the plays of the same name by Aeschylus and Euripides, by introducing Neoptolemus as the agent for securing Philoctetes' bow. Neoptolemus is characterized as compassionate, generous and thus ultimately concerned to see that Philoctetes is treated fairly (906, 965f., 1074f., 1224–34), in stark opposition to Odysseus, whose exclusive interest is to achieve his purpose (75–85, 108–34, 1049–62); see in general Jebb, R. C., The Philoctetes (Cambridge, 1898), pp. xixf., xxivffGoogle Scholar. Success, which Odysseus calls ‘victory’, is of course an essential ingredient of the competitive τιμή-mentality. This opposition of values is very different from what we can glean of the Problematik of Aeschylus' and Euripides' Philoctetes-plays; see Jebb, op. cit., pp. xiv–xxvi. Indeed, it is possible that in the Philoctetes he uses the τιμή/generosity tension to shape his cast and their characterization. In the case of the Electra, however, Sophocles' reading of Homeric epic, this time the Odyssey with its revenge theme, feeds into a very different set of moral concerns; see most recently Davidson, J. F., ‘Homer and Sophocles' Electra’, BICS 35 (1988), 45–72Google Scholar. This suggests, perhaps, that Sophocles particularly regarded the tension as one inherent in the warrior-ethic of the epic tradition.

¹⁷ My thanks to K. H. Lee and CQ's anonymous reader for helpful comment on this study.