Like Aeschylus’s Oresteia and plenty of different Greek tragedies, the Ajax takes as its concern publish-Ili-adic mythology: episodes that Homer does not mention or narrate at once, often related to heroes’ nostoi (“go back trips”), episodes that in lots of instances bring out the darker aspect of hero-ism. In Book 11 of the Odyssey, Homer alludes to the dispute between Achilles and Odysseus.
When Odysseus travels to the underworld, Ajax, still resentful, refuses to speak with him. Homer, but, is pretty reticent at the topic and is not nearly as interested as the tragedians inside the darker elements of heroism and
the dementia of heroes. Tragedy is fascinated in exactly such aspects of human behavior and action and additionally desires to occupy areas of the mythological subculture no
