Sophocles’ Ajax is a harrowing play which depicts the effect of extended war on its participants.
After the death of Achilles, the greatest of the Greek warriors, Agamemnon announces that Achilles’ armor will be given to the bravest surviving soldier—and there are two candidates, Odysseus and Ajax. A panel of judges is appointed and they award the armor to Odysseus. Ajax believes the judges were bribed, and, in his furious anger, sets out to murder Odysseus, Agamemnon, and Menelaus (Agamemnon’s brother and the husband of Helen, whose infidelity caused the Trojan War).
What is now called post-traumatic stress disorder has previously been known as “nostalgia,” “battle fatigue,” and “shell-shock,” among other names, but the effects of war on its participants are as ancient as war itself.
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