Ajax of Locri, the Lesser Ajax.
    Locrian Ajax, the son of Oileus or the Lesser Ajax fought beside Telamonian Ajax (the Greater Ajax) at Troy and took part in all the great battles there. Armed only with a linen breastplate and bow, rather than the heavy armor the other Ajax wore, Locrian Ajax survived the war and participated notoriously in the sack of the city. The most heinous outrage of the Ilioupersis (sack of Troy) was Ajax' sacrilege, his rape of Cassandra at the Palladium. Where Priam's daughter ought to have had sanctuary, Ajax impiously removed both the girl and the statue. Although the Achaeans rejected Ajax for his grave impiety and assigned Cassandra to Agamemnon as prize, he escaped punishment by taking sanctuary himself at Athena's altar. Athena retaliated with a vengeance, driving Ajax's vessel onto a reef and impaling him with Zeus' borrowed thunderbolt. Poseidon, according to Homer, was the god who destroyed Ajax. Athena demanded that the Locrians continue to expiate the Rape of Cassandra for a thousand years, requiring Ajax' countrymen to send two Locrian girls as annual tributes for ritual abuse or execution.
    The Rape of Cassandra was treated frequently in classical art; cf. O. Touchefou LIMC 1/1.339-49 and T. Gantz, Early Greek Myths 651-55.

See also Achilles; Cassandra; Trojan War.