Ajax, the fox, the lion: the Sophoclean endless reflection on power

Abstract

The paper considers the various aspects of Ajax’s action in Sophocles’s tragedy, and comes to the conclusion that the crime actually committed, the destruction of the herds, is on one side extremely serious, on the other not punishable insofar as it is ἄκων, involuntary. The reconciliation fostered by Odysseus is inspired by a long-sighted political realism.