The article deals with the two sacrileges at the end of the Trojan war: that of Neoptolemos who killed Astyanax in a most brutal way and that of Ajax who dragged Kassandra away from the statue of the city goddess Athena with whom she had taken refuge. These sacrileges were not isolated heroic acts, but have to be seen in the reactions of the offended gods and the resulting consequences for all the Achaeans on their way home. In addition to written sources, vase painting around 500 B.C.E. can help us understand the concern of the Greeks for this topic. The question arises as to how the two sacrileges were evaluated in the assessment of the heroes since they were not damned for their brutality but instead honored in their home towns. This opens the view on transgression of heroes and warriors in a general way. They were admired despite and because of their transgression. Therefore modern moral criteria in the evaluation of scenes in Greek vase painting must be questioned. The article tries to give an answer to the question why the attic vase painters chose this subject in the years of the conflict with the Persians at the beginning of the 5th century.