But afterwards he came to his senses and slew also himself.These events were narrated in the of Lesches. See Proclus in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 36; compare Aristot. Poet. 1459b 4ff.. The contest between Ajax and Ulysses for the arms of Achilles was also related in the of Arctinus. See Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 34. It was known to Hom. Od. 11.542ff., who tells us that the Trojans and Pallas Athena acted as judges and awarded the arms to Ulysses. A Scholiast on Hom. Od. 11.547 informs us that Agamemnon, unwilling to undertake the invidious duty of deciding between the two competitors, referred the dispute to the decision of the Trojan prisoners, inquiring of them which of the two heroes had done most harm to the Trojans. The prisoners decided that Ulysses was the man, and the arms were therefore awarded to him. According to another account, which was adopted by the author of the , the Greeks on the advice of Nestor sent spies to the walls of Troy to overhear the Trojans discussing the respective merits of the two champions. They heard two girls debating the question, and thinking that she who gave the preference to Ulysses reasoned the better, they decided accordingly. See Scholiast on Aristoph. Kn. 1056. According to Pind. N. 8.26(45)ff., it was the Greeks who by secret votes decided in favour of Ulysses. The subject was treated by Aeschylus in a lost play called . See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 57ff. The madness and suicide of Ajax, consequent on his disappointment at not being awarded the arms, are the theme of Sophocles's extant tragedy . As to the contest for the arms, see further Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica v.121ff.; Tzetzes, Posthomerica 481ff.; Zenobius, Cent. i.43; Hyginus, Fab. 107; Ov. Met. 12.620-628, xiii.1-398. Quintus Smyrnaeus and Tzetzes agree in representing the Trojan captives as the judges in the dispute, while Ovid speaks of the Greek chiefs sitting in judgment and deciding in favour of Ulysses. According to Zenobius, Cent. i.43, Ajax in his frenzy scourged two rams, believing that he was scourging Agamemnon and Menelaus. This account is based on the description of the frenzy of Ajax in Soph. Aj. 97-110, Soph. Aj. 237-244). And Agamemnon forbade his body to be burnt; and he alone of all who fell at Ilium is buried, in a coffin.Similarly the author of the said that the body of Ajax was not burned, but placed in a coffin “on account of the wrath of the king.” See Eustathius on Hom. Il. ii.557, p. 285. Philostratus tells us that the body was laid in the earth by direction of the seer Calchas, “because suicides may not lawfully receive the burial by fire” (Philostratus, Her. xiii.7). This was probably the true reason for the tradition that the corpse was not cremated in the usual way. For the ghosts of suicides appear to be commonly dreaded; hence unusual modes of disposing of their bodies are adopted in order to render their spirits powerless for mischief. For example, the Baganda of Central Africa, who commonly bury their dead in the earth, burn the bodies of suicides on waste land or at crossroads in order to destroy the ghosts; for they believe that if the ghost of a suicide is not thus destroyed, it will tempt other people to imitate its example. As an additional precaution everyone who passed the place where the body of a suicide had been burnt threw some grass or a few sticks on the spot, “so as to prevent the ghost from catching him, in case it had not been destroyed.” For the same reason, if a man took his life by hanging himself on a tree, the tree was torn up by the roots and burned with the body; if he had killed himself in a house, the house was pulled down and the materials consumed with fire; for “people feared to live in a house in which a suicide had taken place, lest they too should be tempted to commit the same crime.” See J. Roscoe, (London, 1911), pp. 20ff., 289. Similar customs prevailed among the Banyoro, a neighbouring nation of Central Africa. “It was said to be necessary to destroy a tree upon which a person had hanged himself and to burn down a house in which a person had committed suicide, otherwise they would be a danger to people in general and would influence them to commit suicide.” See J. Roscoe, (Cambridge, 1915), pp. 24ff. (where, however, the burning of the body is not expressly mentioned). In like manner the Hos of Togoland, in West Africa, are much afraid of the ghost of a suicide. They believe that the ghost of a man who has hanged himself will torment the first person who sees the body. Hence when the relations of such a man approach the corpse they protect themselves against the ghost by wearing magical cords and smearing their faces with a magical powder. The tree on which a man hanged himself is cut down, and the branch on which he tied the fatal noose is lopped off. To this branch the corpse is then tied and dragged ruthlessly through the woods, over stones and through thorny bushes, to the place where “men of blood,” that is, all who die a violent death, are buried. There they dig a shallow grave in great haste and throw the body in. Having done so they run home; for they say that the ghosts of “men of blood” fling stones at such as do not retreat fast enough, and that he who is struck by one of these stones must die. The houses of such men are broken down and burnt. A suicide is believed to defile the land and to prevent rain from falling. Hence the district where a man has killed himself must be purified by a sacrifice offered to the Earth-god. See J. Spieth, (Berlin, 1906), pp. 272, 274, 276ff. 756, 758. As to the special treatment of the bodies of suicides, see R. Lasch, “Die Behandlung der Leiche des Selbstmorders,” , lxxvi. (Brunswick, 1899, pp. 63-66). In the of Sophocles the rites of burial are at first refused, but afterwards conceded, to the dead body of Ajax; and though these ceremonies are not described, we may assume that they included the burning of the corpse on a pyre. This variation from what appears to be the usual tradition may have been introduced by Sophocles out of deference to the religious feelings of the Athenians, who worshipped Ajax as a hero, and who would have been shocked to think of his remains being denied the ordinary funeral honours. See Jebb's Introduction to his edition of the Ajax(Cambridge, 1896), pp. xxix.ff. As to the worship of Ajax at Athens, see Paus. 1.35.3; Corpus Inscriptionum Atticarum ii. 467-471; Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum 717, vol. ii. p. 370. From these inscriptions we learn that the Athenian youths used to sail across every year to Salamis and there sacrifice to Ajax. His grave is at Rhoeteum.

When the war had already lasted ten years, and the Greeks were despondent, Calchas prophesied to them that Troy could not be taken unless they had the bow and arrows of Hercules fighting on their side. On hearing that, Ulysses went with Diomedes to Philoctetes in Lemnos, and having by craft got possession of the bow and arrows he persuaded him to sail to Troy. So he went, and after being cured by Podalirius, he shot Alexander.These events are related in precisely the same way, though with many poetic embellishments, by Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica ix.325-479 (the fetching of Philoctetes from Lemnos and the healing of him by Podalirius), Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica x.206ff. (Paris wounded to death by the arrows of Philoctetes). The story was told somewhat differently by Lesches in the . According to him, the prophecy that Troy could not be taken without the help of Philoctetes was uttered, not by Calchas, but by the Trojan seer Helenus, whom Ulysses had captured; Philoctetes was brought from Lemnos by Diomedes alone, and he was healed, not by Podalirius, but by Machaon. The account of Tzetzes, Posthomerica 571-595 agrees with that of Lesches in respect of the prophecy of Helenus and the cure by Machaon. Sophocles also followed the in putting the prophecy in the mouth of the captured Trojan seer Helenus (Soph. Phil. 604-613). Compare Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 911. In their plays on the subject (see above, note on Apollod. E.3.27) Euripides and Sophocles differed as to the envoys whom the Greeks sent to bring the wounded Philoctetes from Lemnos to Troy. According to Euripides, with whom Apollodorus, Quintus Smyrnaeus, and Hyginus, Fab. 103 agree, the envoys were Ulysses and Diomedes; according to Sophocles, they were Ulysses and Neoptolemus, son of Achilles. See Dio Chrysostom lii. vol. ii. p. 161, ed. L. Dindorf; Jebb's Introduction to his edition of Sophocles, Philoctetes (Cambridge, 1898), pp. xvff.; TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 613ff. However, while Sophocles diverges from what seems to have been the usual story by representing Neoptolemus instead of Diomedes as the companion of Ulysses on this errand, he implicitly recognizes the other version by putting it in the mouth of the merchant (Soph. Phil. 570-597). A painting at the entrance to the acropolis of Athens represented Ulysses or Diomedes (it is uncertain which) in the act of carrying off the bow of Philoctetes. See Paus. 1.22.6, with Frazer's commentary (vol. ii. pp. 263ff.). The combat between Philoctetes and Paris is described by Malalas, Chr. v. pp. 110ff., ed. L. Dindorf.

After the death of Alexander, Helenus and Deiphobus quarrelled as to which of them should marry Helen; and as Deiphobus was preferred, Helenus left Troy and abode in Ida.Compare Conon 34; Serv. Verg. A. 2.166. The marriage of Deiphobus to Helen after the death of Paris was related in the . See Proclus in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 36. Compare Tzetzes, Posthomerica 600ff.; Tzetzes, Scholiast on. Lycophron, 143, 168; Eur. Tro. 959ff.; Scholiast on Hom. Il. 24.251, and on Od. iv.276; Dictys Cretensis iv.22. The marriage was seemingly known to Hom. Od. 4.276. But as Chalcas said that Helenus knew the oracles that protected the city, Ulysses waylaid and captured him and brought him to the camp;

and Helenus was forced to tell how Ilium could be taken,As to the capture of Helenus and his prophecy, see Soph. Phil. 604ff.; Soph. Phil. 1337ff.; Conon 34; Tzetzes, Posthomerica 571-579; Tzetzes, Chiliades vi.508-515; Serv. Verg. A. 2.166; Dictys Cretensis ii.18. The mode of his capture and the substance of his prophecies were variously related. The need of fetching the bones of Pelops is mentioned by Tzetzes among the predictions of Helenus; and the necessity of obtaining the Palladium is recorded by Conon and Servius. According to Paus. 5.13.4, it was a shoulder-blade of Pelops that was brought from Pisa to Troy; on the return from Troy the bone was lost in a shipwreck, but afterwards recovered by a fisherman. to wit, first, if the bones of Pelops were brought to them; next, if Neoptolemus fought for them; and third, if the Palladium,As to the Palladium, see above, Apollod. 3.12.3. which had fallen from heaven, were stolen from Troy, for while it was within the walls the city could not be taken.