The island of Salamis, birthplace of fabled Ajax the Great, was a vassal state of Mycenae during the Trojan War, contributing twelve ships to the Achaean fleet. Its mighty inhabitants were reputed to be descended from the island's legendary first ruler Cychreus, son of the nymph Salamis and the god Poseidon, known as "the dragon" on account of his fiery temper. It is possible that ancient storytellers spun this mythological origin to explain the islanders' gigantic stature; Homer himself, in the Odyssey, explains the massive size of another insular people, the Phaeacians, through giant and cyclopean ancestry.