Ajax or Aias ( or ; ) was a mythological Greek hero, the son of King Telamon and Periboea, and the half-brother of Teucer. He plays an important role in Homer's Iliad and in the Epic Cycle, a series of epic poems about the Trojan War. To distinguish him from Ajax, son of Oileus (Ajax the Lesser), he is called "Telamonian Ajax," "Greater Ajax," or "Ajax the Great". In Etruscan mythology, he is known as Aivas Tlamunus.