Ajax is the son of Telamon, who was the son of Aeacus and grandson of Zeus, and his first wife Periboea.

Ajax, who in the post-Homeric legend is described as the grandson of Aeacus and the great-grandson of Zeus, was the tutelary hero of the island of Salamis, where he had a temple and an image, and where a festival called Aianteia was celebrated in his honour.

The identification of Ajax with the family of Aeacus was chiefly a matter which concerned the Athenians, after Salamis had come into their possession, on which occasion Solon is said to have inserted a line in the Iliad ( 2. 557 – 558 ), for the purpose of supporting the Athenian claim to the island.

Aeacus ( also spelled Eacus, ) was a mythological king of the island of Aegina in the Saronic Gulf.

According to some accounts Aeacus was a son of Zeus and Europa.

Some traditions related that at the time when Aeacus was born, Aegina was not yet inhabited, and that Zeus changed the ants () of the island into men ( Myrmidons ) over whom Aeacus ruled, or that he made men grow up out of the earth.

Ovid, on the other hand, supposes that the island was not uninhabited at the time of the birth of Aeacus, and states that, in the reign of Aeacus, Hera, jealous of Aegina, ravaged the island bearing the name of the latter by sending a plague or a fearful dragon into it, by which nearly all its inhabitants were carried off, and that Zeus restored the population by changing the ants into men.

Aeacus while he reigned in Aegina was renowned in all Greece for his justice and piety, and was frequently called upon to settle disputes not only among men, but even among the gods themselves.

He was such a favourite with the latter, that, when Greece was visited by a drought in consequence of a murder which had been committed, the oracle of Delphi declared that the calamity would not cease unless Aeacus prayed to the gods that it might.

Aeacus himself showed his gratitude by erecting a temple to Zeus Panhellenius on mount Panhellenion, and the Aeginetans afterwards built a sanctuary in their island called Aeaceum, which was a square place enclosed by walls of white marble.

When the work was completed, three dragons rushed against the wall, and while the two of them which attacked those parts of the wall built by the gods fell down dead, the third forced its way into the city through the part built by Aeacus.

Aeacus was also believed by the Aeginetans to have surrounded their island with high cliffs to protect it against pirates.

Tradition derives the name from Aegina, the mother of Aeacus, who was born on and ruled the island.

Here, Aegina gave birth to Aeacus, who would later become king of Oenone ; thenceforth, the island's name was Aegina.

This was the ' good ' king Minos, and he was held in such esteem by the Olympian gods that, after he died, he was made one of the three ' Judges of the Dead ', alongside his brother Rhadamanthys and half-brother Aeacus.

The Epicureans believed that the soul was a thin tissue of atoms that dissipated into the cosmos upon death, and that conventional mythological views of the afterlife and its geography and inhabitants were inane fictions — a view encapsulated by a funeral inscription at Rome that reads: Do not go forth nor pass along without reading me ; but stop, listen to me and do not leave before you have been instructed: there is no crossing ferry to Hades, nor Charon the ferryman, nor Aeacus holding the keys, nor the dog Cerberus.

In later versions, Aeacus and Rhadamanthus were made judges as well, with Minos leading as the " appeals court " judge.

According to later legends ( c. 400 BC ), on account of his inflexible integrity he was made one of the judges of the dead in the lower world, together with Aeacus and Minos.

Once crossed, the soul would be judged by Aeacus, Rhadamanthus and King Minos.

Sciron disputed this, but agreed to accept arbitration by Aeacus, king of Aegina, who decided that Nisus should be king and Sciron the military leader.

Though the tomb of Aeacus remained in a shrine enclosure in the most conspicuous part of the port city, a quadrangular enclosure of white marble sculpted with bas-reliefs, in the form in which Pausanias saw it, with the tumulus of Phocus nearby, there was no temenos of Peleus at Aegina.

Aeacus and Telamon by Jean-Michel Moreau le Jeune.

Aeacus prayed, and it ceased in consequence.

A legend preserved in Pindar relates that Apollo and Poseidon took Aeacus as their assistant in building the walls of Troy.

Several other incidents connected with the story of Aeacus are mentioned by Ovid.

By Endeïs Aeacus had two sons, Telamon and Peleus ( father of Achilles ), and by Psamathe a son, Phocus, whom he preferred to the two others, both of whom contrived to kill Phocus during a contest, and then fled from their native island.

After his death, Aeacus became ( along with the Cretan brothers Rhadamanthus and Minos ) one of the three judges in Hades, and according to Plato especially for the shades of Europeans.

Aeacus had sanctuaries both at Athens and in Aegina, and the Aeginetans regarded him as the tutelary deity of their island.

Aeacus laments Heracles's theft of Cerberus and sentences Dionysus to Acheron and torment by hounds of Cocytus, Echidna, the Tartesian eel, and Tithrasian Gorgons.

He was thinking that the way she had responded to his own kiss hadn't meant what he had believed it had.

Facing the forest now, she who had not dared to enter it before, walked between two trees at random and headed in what she believed was the direction of the pool.

His presence there, asleep in the grass, confirmed all that Mary Jane believed it was in his power to teach her: freedom from the tedium of needs such as hotels, the meaning of nature, how to live, simply, with the angels.

She felt the look and looked back because she could not help it, seeing that he was neither as old nor as thick as she had at first believed.

The founder of the Junior Showmanship Competition the late Leonard Brumby, Sr. ( for whom the trophy is named after at Westminster ) was an outstanding Handler and believed a Junior should have an opportunity to exhibit in a dog show starting with the Junior Showmanship Division.

The merit of the pie, Vernon believed, was due more to its making than to the waning heat of the oven.

The increase in oxygen uptake rates from 1.2 to 2.6 mg/l/hr which followed an increase in rotor speed was believed to be related to resuspension of solids which had settled at the lower rotor speeds.

It is believed that Hudson was related to other seafaring men of the Muscovy Company and was trained on company ships.

The route which he had traveled and which he believed might develop into a trade route was followed by his settlers earlier than he might have expected.

Here was a cause she believed in.

The large statue on the first floor is believed to be the statue of Pompey at the base of which Julius Caesar was stabbed to death ( if so, the statue once stood in the senate house ).

As you approach the church on the Via D. Baullari you are passing within yards of the remains of the Roman Theatre of Pompey, near which is believed to have been the place where Julius Caesar was assassinated.

It suddenly seemed very important to me that Mary Jane Brennan should know the truth about me -- that I was not the confused, sick, irresponsible person she believed me to be.

It was first believed the bomb was rigged to the car's starter.

We have not the leisure, or the patience, or the skill, to comprehend what was working in the mind and heart of a then recent graduate from the Harvard Divinity School who would muster the audacity to contradict his most formidable instructor, the majesterial Andrews Norton, by saying that, while he believed Jesus `` like other religious teachers '', worked miracles, `` I see not how a miracle proves a doctrine ''.

Mr. Philip Toynbee affirms at one point that if he shared the anticipations of Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four, if he believed Communism was not only evil but `` also irredeemably evil '', then he might `` think it right to do anything rather than to take the risk of a communist world.

But actually these accounts reveal the supernatural powers that the masters were in fact supposed to possess, as well as the extreme degree of popular credulity: `` Hwang Pah ( O Baku ), one day going up Mount Tien Tai which was believed to have been inhabited by Arhats with supernatural powers, met with a monk whose eyes emitted strange light.

He believed in being seen near the front lines and he was there.

A tribe in ancient India believed the earth was a huge tea tray resting on the backs of three giant elephants, which in turn stood on the shell of a great tortoise.

Even if that's all the promise he ever gave or ever will give, the giving of it once was enough and you believed it then and you will always believe it, even when it is finally the only thing in the world you have left to believe, and the whole world is telling you that one was a lie.

Something in the back of his mind was aware that the magnificence of the plan lay in his faith, that the idea would work because he believed in it, since his courage and virility were involved, because it was truly his.