AIAS

Form: Lat. Aiax.

Son of the Locrian king Oileus, hence called the Locrian or Lesser Aias in contrast to the Telamonian. In forty ships he led the Locrians to Troy, where, notwithstanding his small stature and light equipment, he distinguished himself beside his gigantic namesake, especially in the battle by the ships and that over the body of Patroclus. He was renowned for hurling the spear, and as the swiftest runner next to Achilles. On his voyage home, to appease the anger of Athena, he suffered shipwreck on the Gyraean rocks off the island of Myconos or (according to another story) on the southernmost point of Euboea. Poseidon indeed rescued him on the rocks; but when he boasted of having escaped against the will of the gods, the sea-king with his trident smote off the rock on which he sat, and he sank in the waves. Later accounts say that the goddess's anger fell upon him because, at the taking of Troy, when Cassandra had taken refuge at her altar and embraced her image, he tore her away by force, so that the statue fell. Though Agamemnon took the maiden from him, the Greeks left the outrage on the goddess unpunished, and on their way home she wreaked her wrath on the whole fleet. He, like other heroes, was said to be still living with Achilles in the island of Leuce. The Locrians worshipped him as a hero, and always left a vacant place for him in the line of battle.