Tecmessa of Phrygia

Tecmessa comforted Ajax after his divine-induced madness caused him to attack herds, and mourned his death when he decided to kill himself.

[1][2] During the ten-year long Trojan War the Greek army sacked several cities in the northwestern coast of Asia Minor.

[4] After the goddess Athena drove the revenge-seeking Ajax mad, he left his tent with the aim to kill Odysseus and the two Atreides while Tecmessa advised him to stay inside; nevertheless he ignored her.

[18] Tecmessa used her robe as funerary shroud for him to conceal the body from prying eyes and together with their son paid due to the dead man by placing strands of their own hair as offering.

[21] A red-figure lekythos of about 460 BC depicts a woman, apparently Tecmessa, spreading a cloak over Ajax's dead body.