Ajax2ANCIENT_Kleophrades

Ajax2ANCIENT_Kleophrades

Beazley.ox.ac.uk
OGCMA s.v. "The Lesser Ajax, son of Oileus"
Classical Sources:
Homer, Il. 2.527ff., 23.473ff. and passim
Homer, Od. 4.499-511
Proclus Iliu Persis
Vergil Aen. 1.33-49
Ovid Met. 14.466-71, 13.410ff.
Apollodorus Libr. Epit. 5.23, 6.6
Pausanias 10.31.2
Hyginus Fab. 116
Kleophrades Painter, "Ilioupersis"

The Kleophrades Painter, "Ilioupersis (Sack of Troy)", early 5th-century Attic hydria, ca. 480 B.C., Naples, Museo Nazionale Archeologico, inv. 81669 "The Vivenzio Hydria" from Nola.

The brutality of the Greeks in the sack of Troy, chronicled in mythological narratives by Proclus and Vergil, may reflect here the Persians' behavior in the sack of the Athenian Acropolis in 480. (Beazley notes)

At right is shown the detail of Ajax the Lesser abducting Cassandra from the Palladium, a grossly impious act. Cassandra's full-frontal nudity, which is an extraordinarily graphic depiction for early 5th-century painting, emphasizes her vulnerability.

Ancient Greek red-figure vase painting depicting a battle scene with warriors and a fallen figure, possibly Ajax and Cassandra.

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University.
The present resource contains information assembled for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1400 – 1990’s, edited by J. Davidson Reid (Oxford 1994), and it is used with express permission from Oxford University Press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.