Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

Before the ships cleared the Troad, Athena’s anger at Ajax Locrian’s violation of her temple was already fixed. Euripides opens *Troades* with Athena asking Poseidon to wreck the Greek fleet on the homeward voyage—retaliation for Ajax and for the unsanctified sack. The Achaeans quarreled: Ajax was nearly stoned, then spared when he clung to her altar, which only postponed the goddess’s accounting. Agamemnon and Menelaus split over the time of sailing; part of the army left under bad omens. Storm and shipwreck followed. Ajax son of Oileus was cast on the Gyrae rocks; he boasted that he would escape even against the gods’ will, and Poseidon split the rock or struck him into the sea. Other contingents scattered toward the separate fates the *Nostoi* and *Odyssey* will track—Agamemnon toward Clytemnestra’s net, Menelaus toward Egypt, Odysseus toward the longer wandering deferred to its own batch. This entry marks the hinge from sack to returns: Athena’s wrath made victory expensive, and Locrian Ajax’s end is the first named payment.