You, Sir, Are Badass: Ajax Cleans Up edition

This edition of hardcore badassery comes from Book 13 of The Iliad. Pushed back to their boats by the Trojans and their leader, Hektor, the despairing Achaians are inspired by the god Poseidon to stave off the attack. An exchange of spear-thrusts has left Amphimachos (an Achaian) and Imbrios (a Trojan) dead. Each side tries to claim the fallen bodies during the combat. The Aiantes (two Achaian champions both named Aias/Ajax) snatch the Trojan body away and . . . oh, why don’t I let Homer tell it (translated by Richmond Lattimore)?

But the two Aiantes in the fury of their fierce war strength,
as two lions catch up a goat from the guard of the rip-fanged
hounds, and carry it in to the density of the underbrush,
holding it high from the ground in the crook of their jaws, so the lordly
two Aiantes lifted Imbrios high and stripped him
of his armour, and the son of Oïleus [the larger Aias], in anger
for Amphimachos, hewed away Imbrios’ head from the soft neck
and threw it spinning like a ball through the throng of fighters
until it came to rest in the dust at the feet of Hektor.

Sure, the gods would later drive Aias batshit-crazy and lead him to suicide, but sawing the head off a Trojan and throwing it like a bowling ball at the enemy general? B-A-D-A-S-S.

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