Only a minority of the extant plays of Sophocles can be firmly dated, which is tiresome. Ajax, with which we have opened, may well be, but is not certainly, the earliest; Antigone must have preceded 440 B.C. by a year or two. Trachiniae, though it cannot be placed in relation to either of those plays, probably belongs, more or less, to the same creative period; and there is a convenience in taking it next. It shares with Antigone an important Sophoclean interest, often neglected, upon which Trachiniae throws a light which helps the interpretation of the other play. It shares with Ajax the phenomenon of a formidable male hero. If Ajax stood alone in the theatre of Sophocles, one might hesitate to find such repellent aspects in him. If, however, he is – apart from Theseus – the greatest of heroes with Athenian connections, there was a pan-Hellenic hero who might seem the very paradigm of heroism; and if we find some degree of kinship between Ajax and Heracles – a similar combination of great and repellent qualities – it may serve to confirm the view which has been taken of Ajax in preceding chapters.

Throughout in Sophocles the heroes, their nature and their fates, stand in a problematic relationship to the gods, with whom Ajax put himself in the wrong from the start. If it is true that the gods love the ‘moderate’, they cannot love Ajax and he is bound to destroy himself by his excesses.