Talk:Ajax (mythology)
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[edit] Terminology
This is an excellent article. My quibble would be with the repeated, seemingly deliberate, use of "lover" to describe Patroklos and Achilles' relationship. While there are many mentions of love between the two, I don't believe it's ever eros. And there is a bit of controversy in the classics camps over whether Ancient Greeks had the type of homosexual (as opposed to homophilial) relationships that are often alledged as "common knowledge," as there isn't a tremendous amount of text to support any conclusions one way or another. With that regard, I'd say that an edit to "who many regard as having been lovers" or something similar. I'd argue that relationships of the past are often not as easy to extrapolate or conclude on as ones in the present, and that it's important not to thrust ourselves too much onto the past (the Lincoln sexuality conversation would also be relevant). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.40.62.104 (talk • contribs) 13:27, March 25, 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Legendary hero?
When someone is called a "legendary hero", does that mean that they have existed for real or only in legends? --EnSamulili 20:03, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- Saying that someone is a "legendary hero" doesn't mean anything about their existence or nonexistence, only that there are legends about them. Paul Bunyan is a legendary hero who probably never existed; Joan of Arc is a legendary heroine who did. Nobody really knows whether figures from Greek mythology like Aias existed or not. (A late response, as I was coming to this talk page for other reasons...) —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:30, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Article names
Is there any particular reason why the two Aiantes' articles are at Telamonian Aias and Ajax the Lesser? Wouldn't it make sense to choose either the Greek or Latin spelling for both of them? Most articles about Homeric heroes seem to be at their conventional English (Latinized) names: Achilles, not Akhilleus, Patroclus, not Patroklos. Should this article be moved, perhaps to Telamonian Ajax or Ajax the Great? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:30, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Agreed, I think there should be some type of effort to come up with some agreement on what spellings to use for these Greek names it's frustrating as there are three or four correct ways to spell Achilles. I personally prefer the more Hellenitic spellings like in the Latimore version, but I think the Latinized forms are more well known (Ajax over Aias, ect) Also, should all the alternate spellings be redirects? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dondolee (talk • contribs) .
- Please see WP:GREEK for a standard for spellings of Greek names. Redirects for other spellings are a good idea. --Akhilleus (talk) 22:42, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] This article isn't entirely accurate
The inclusion and selection of things from the Iliad is not representative. I don't have time to go through and change everything, but there are some minor errors. Especially in the duel with Hector. Also Ulysses was given Achilles armor when he was judged to be the braver man. This article has issues. (Bjorn Tipling 07:09, 28 February 2006 (UTC))
[edit] Ajax "the Great"
I'm not a big fan of the article title. In classical scholarship, the term "Ajax the Great" is hardly ever used, if at all; this figure is called Aias, or Telamonian Aias to distinguish him from Locrian Aias. I don't have a problem with the Latinized spelling, but I'd like to see the title changed to Telamonian Ajax, or preferably "Ajax", with a link to a disambiguation page that would have links to Locrian Ajax, the cleanser Ajax, etc.
- That works for me. My main concern was that it was odd to have a page for one of the Aiantes under "Aias" and the other at "Ajax". —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:37, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Requested move to Ajax
The move request is closed. Consensus does not favor the move.
Ajax the Great → Ajax – Rationale: Scholarship refers to this Greek hero as Ajax or Telamonian Ajax (actually, as Aias or Telamonian Aias, but Wikipedia seems to prefer the Latinized spelling). "Ajax the Great" is rarely encountered. --Akhilleus (talk) 05:23, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Survey
- Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~
- Oppose. Ajax should be the disambiguation page, the football club is too notable and will be the target of too many incoming links to ignore it. If you dislike the current title, how about Ajax (Greek hero)? Kusma (討論) 05:30, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Discussion
- Add any additional comments
Kusma, thanks for the comment. If an incoming user wants the football club and encounters a disambiguation link at the top of the new Ajax page, won't he/she find the page they want just the same? It's only one more click, after all.
Is there any way to establish how many users are going to the Ajax Amsterdam page vs. Ajax the Great etc.? Or do we just rely on subjective impressions of their notability? I hadn't heard about the football club until your post, but I don't follow European football at all, so I'm no help there. I do know that I wouldn't look for the Greek hero(es) at Ajax the Great or Ajax the Lesser. I suppose the solution you've proposed, or something like it, might work. --Akhilleus (talk) 05:41, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
- Unfortunately there's not really a way to find out what our users want. Special:Whatlinkshere/Ajax has apparently been cleaned up, so nothing links to the disambiguation page. An advantage of having Ajax as a disambiguation page is that any incoming links will be corrected by the linkfix project if there are enoug of them. Top disambiguation as you propose just leads to lots of wrong links, because they are rarely cleaned up. Just for comparison, ca:Ajax, de:Ajax, fr:Ajax, id:Ajax, it:Ajax, nl:Ajax, pt:Ajax, sl:Ajax, fi:Ajax, and sv:Ajax are all disambiguation pages, so most other languages seem to agree that the Greek hero is not clearly the most important meaning (even if the other things like the towns and football clubs are probably named after him). Ajax Amsterdam is one of the two or three best-known Dutch football clubs, about as well known in Europe as any NFL or MLB club is in the US. Kusma (討論) 15:07, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the links; most of the other Wikipedias don't have a robust set of Ajax entries, but I see what you're getting at. Thing is, we do have at least one way of estimating the notability of various pages: how many other wikipedia pages link there? Ajax the Great has at least twice as many links as Ajax Amsterdam. I don't think having the Greek hero as the main Ajax page will lead to many wrong links; as I was doing the cleanup yesterday, many of the links were to the mythological hero, others were to Ajax (programming), some others to Ajax Amsterdam, and then a bunch to Ajax (horse). I doubt many editors are adding new material about the history of Australian horse racing! No doubt some links to the programming technique or the football club would make it through, but not that many. --Akhilleus (talk) 18:02, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
- I don't know how you count your links, but I count that Ajax Amsterdam has more than 300 incoming links, Ajax (programming) more than 100 and Ajax the Great less than 100, so the Whatlinkshere kind of supports having the disambiguation page at Ajax. Kusma (討論) 18:15, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
Ah. I only had the first 50 links displayed. Whoops. ok, Ajax Amsterdam obviously has more incoming links than Ajax the Great. --Akhilleus (talk) 18:19, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Other names?
If Ajax is to remain a disambiguation page (as the discussion above suggests it may), what's the best name for this article? I don't think that Ajax (Greek hero) is a great solution, since it could also describe Oilean Ajax. We could move this page to Telemonian Ajax and Ajax the Lesser to Oilean Ajax for consistency's sake, if that matters. Thoughts? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 06:50, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
- I suggest Ajax (mythology), on analogy with Calypso (mythology). The "other" Ajax would then be Ajax Oilades or Ajax son of Oileus or similar. Not a perfectly ideal solution, but it seems clear that consensus favors keeping Ajax as a disambiguation page. --Akhilleus (talk) 23:30, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
- This proposal has been up for awhile with no input. Previous discussion has indicated that the current name of the page is unsatisfactory, so I'm going to move this page to Ajax (mythology) shortly, unless there is an objection. --Akhilleus (talk) 06:01, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
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- As should be clear if you're on this page, the article has been moved to Ajax (mythology). Don't say you weren't warned! --Akhilleus (talk) 03:50, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] so who held the trojans off while carrying the body of Achilles away?
In the article on Trojan war it states "Odysseus held back the Trojans, while Aias carried the body away", here it states "Ajax, with his great axe, manages to get the Trojans away, while Odysseus pulls the body towards his chariot, and rides away". So what is the truth? --Dudo2 18:40, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] A Hammer?
I had never heard of Aias wielding a hammer before I read this article, but I did not make any edits, with one exception. I know for a fact that while defending the ships, Homer describes him as wielding a spear, not a hammer. My knowledge is limited to the Iliad, however, so I left the remained of the article untouched. 76.114.206.220 22:05, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Minor vandalism
I noticed some minor vandalism as of 2007-09-25 Tue 15:07:16. What I can recognize as problematic is for example inaccuracies in the Family section and various descriptions of Ajax as a son of a bitch, etc.
I'm just passing through having gotten side-tracked while looking for something else; I hope some knowledgeable person can go through the article and clean it up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.5.75.114 (talk) 19:11, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Removed "Palace" Section
I removed the "Palace" section, since it contained the silly and completely irresponsible suggestion that this Mycenaean palace "may have been Ajax's home." If anyone can think of a reason to put the palace info back in, and can do it WITHOUT making the ridiculous assumption that Ajax was ever a real person, feel free. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.211.216.250 (talk) 22:55, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
I would agree with the above removal of this section, but as it has been re-added since, I have instead re-written the section slightly to stress that these are the claims of a single archaeologist (about his *own* dig site), and that the claims in question are largely conjecture. The article currently presents it as if the section is about the hunt for Ajax's palace and a possible location for it, which tacitly assumes that the character is definitely real and had a Palace near Salamis, which is more than a little missleading. --Orias (talk) 01:14, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
