Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Ajax

---

The sequel to the story

The Teucer of Sophocles.

of Ajax was treated by Sophocles in two of his lost plays, the Teucer and the Eurysaces. The subject of the former is already adumbrated in the Ajax (1008—1020): Teucer, on his return to Salamis, is upbraided and expelled by Telamon. A few verses remain from a speech in which the aged king lamented the death of his son, —verses of much beauty and pathos, which reveal some gentler traits in the gloomy and choleric Telamon:—

“ὡς ἄῤ, ὦ τέκνον, κενὴν ἐτερπόμην σου τέρψιν εὐλογουμένου ὡς ζῶντος: ἡ δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἐν σκότῳ λήθουσά με ἔσαιν᾽ Ἐρινὺς ἡδοναῖς ἐψευσμένον”¹.

This work is supposed to have been the model of Pacuvius in his tragedy of the same name, from which Cicero quotes part of the passionate reproaches addressed by Telamon to Teucer².

The Eurysaces of Sophocles is known only by the citation

His Eur saces.

of a single word from it³; but a probable conjecture as to its argument has been based on fragments from the Eurysaces of Attius, taken in connection with a passage of Justin⁴. After his repulse by Telamon, Teucer had founded the new Salamis in Cyprus. On a report of Telamon's death reaching him there, he returned to the old Salamis; but was repelled by Eurysaces, and finally settled among the Gallaeci in the north-west of Spain.