Aias and the Gods

William S. Duffy (State University of New York, Buffalo)

In all the Iliad, no hero has a more complicated relationship with the gods than Telemonian Aias. He receives less divine aid than almost all of the other major heroes in the epic (despite appearing more often in the text than all but two of them), but there are no outward signs that he is despised by the gods. His primary divine antagonist, Zeus, is also his main divine benefactor. How can we make interpret this contradictory information and make a conclusive statement about Aias’ standing with the divine? The answer may be found in another peculiarity of Aias’ character—his repeated encounters with Hektor.

There are sixteen meetings between Hektor and Aias on the battlefield, a dozen more than the number of encounters between any other pair of opposing heroes in the Iliad. The meetings between the two heroes are spread out over most of the epic. When we look at Aias’ relationship with the Gods through the lens of the Hektor/Aias encounters, it suddenly makes a great deal more sense.  Zeus’ antagonism toward Aias is made not out of hatred towards him, but to prevent him from killing Hektor and leaving Zeus’ promise to Thetis unfulfilled. His aid of Aias in XVII therefore becomes not a contradictory action, but a confirmation of the herald’s statement in VII that he loves Aias as much as he does Hektor. A study of the Hektor/Aias encounters reveals that it is not the gods who ignore Aias, only Athena. Athena repeatedly fails to help Aias in his battles with Hektor, even though he is often in situations that all but demand her presence. It also becomes clear that Aias can intuit the presence of gods on the battlefield, a talent which changes his agreement to stop fighting Hektor in VII from an illogical spurning of victory to a decision made to avert almost certain death at the hands of a divinely-aided adversary.