Ajax was the son of Telamon and a major Greek warrior in the Trojan War.
Usually called Ajax the Great or Telamonian Ajax, he was the son of King Telamon of Salamis and Periboea, and the half-brother of the archer Teucer. In Homer’s Iliad, Ajax is one of the strongest and most dependable Achaean fighters, second in stature and battlefield reputation mainly to Achilles.
Ajax is especially associated with his enormous shield and defensive strength. He fought Hector in a celebrated duel that ended without a decisive winner, and later helped hold back the Trojans when they attacked the Greek ships. After Patroclus fell, Ajax and Menelaus protected and recovered his body from the battlefield.
The answer can seem confusing because Greek mythology includes another prominent warrior named Ajax: Ajax the Lesser, son of Oileus. The clue “son of Telamon” specifically identifies Ajax the Great. In later tradition, Ajax’s failure to receive Achilles’ armor after Achilles’s death drove him mad, and he died by suicide, a story dramatized by Sophocles.