Odysseus

King of Ithaca. The Romans identified Odysseus as Ulysses. Odysseus (Ὀδυσσεύς) was the hero of the epic poem called The Odyssey.

Odysseus was the son of Laërtes (Laertes) and Anticleia, daughter of the thief Autolycus and Mestra. Other writers said that Sisyphus was his father, who had ravished Anticleia in revenge for Autolycus stealing his cattle. Laërtes raised Odysseus as if he were his own son. At birth, it was Autolycus who named the infant Odysseus. Odysseus had a sister named Ctimene who later married Eurylochus, one of the warriors who sailed with the hero to Troy and was killed by Charybdis.

Though he was not suitor of Helen, Odysseus advised Tyndareüs (Tyndareus), king of Sparta, to make Helen's suitors to swear an oath to provide aid to any husband she choose. Odysseus himself was a suitor of Penelope, daughter of Icarius and cousin of Helen. He won Penelope's hand by winning a footrace. Penelope bore him a son, Telemachus.

In the war against Troy, Odysseus brought men and provided twelve ships for the war effort from Ithaca and Cephallenia.

Odysseus was perhaps the most atypical and complex hero in Greek mythology. Odysseus was a great fighter and superb athlete. Odysseus was undoubtedly brave, yet Homer also emphasized that he was also the shrewdest and most prudent of the leaders in Troy. In the Odyssey, he was shown as an extremely resourceful hero.

He was the most eloquent of the Greek leaders. When they arrived at Troy, Odysseus and Menelaüs (Menelaus) were sent into the city to demand Helen's return, Priam admired skill in oratory. Days after the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon, most were despairing of Achilles withdrawal; it was Odysseus' eloquent speech which inspired the Greeks to stay and fight. Agamemnon sent Nestor, Ajax and Odysseus as ambassadors to Achilles; Odysseus was unsuccessful in persuading Achilles to return to combat. Before returning to the fighting, Odysseus also failed to persuade Achilles not to fast before facing the Trojans. Zeus himself also believed in Odysseus' speech that Achilles could lose while facing a well-fed Hector. Anyway, Athena secretly fed Achilles ambrosia.

Although unsuccessful in a few of his speeches, his failure was not the result of poor oratory. Rather that when other leaders spoke, they spoke with emotion, with their pride always clouding their judgement. When Odysseus spoke, he remained objective and relied on common sense rather than his ego or honour. But many critics and writers also accused him of being Machiavellian and manipulative, particularly in Sophocles' plays Ajax and Philoctetes.

Odysseus was often portrayed in a less favourable light by later writers and critics. They often showed Odysseus to be greedy, with gluttonous and cowardly behaviour.

When Agamemnon and Menelaus were gathering men, they noted that one of the prophecies said that Troy could not be taken without Odysseus' participation. Odysseus also knew of the prophecy, but he knew as well that if he went to Troy, he would not be able to return home for at least twenty years, losing all of his ships and men.

He tried to feign madness by plowing the field with an ox and ass, sowing salt instead of seeds. One of Agamemnon's lieutenants, Palamedes, son of Nauplius, who was just as cunning as Odysseus, knew that Odysseus was feigning to be mad. Palamedes snatched Odysseus' infant son Telemachus from Penelope and put the infant in front of the path of the plow. To avoid the horses trampling upon his son, Odysseus was forced to turn his horses aside, thereby revealing that he was not mad at all. Odysseus had little choice but set out for Troy, but he never forgave Palamedes.

When the Greeks arrived at Troy, Odysseus false implicated Palemedes as a traitor, accepting gold from the Trojans. Finding the gold buried near Palamedes' tent, the Greek leaders believed Odysseus' stories and had Palamedes stoned as a traitor. Whether Homer even knew of this story remains uncertain.

In the Iliad, Homer portrayed Odysseus as a very cunning fighter in the war and a skilled diplomat. He was one of the Greek leaders who volunteered to accept the challenge of Hector, but was eliminated in the drawing of lots. With Diomedes they slipped out of their camp at night, and captured and killed a Trojan spy, Dolon. They also entered the Trojan camp and killed Troy's ally Rhesus, king of the Thracians, together with twelve men, and stole the king's immortal horses. In the morning, after Diomedes was wounded, he faced the Trojans alone. Odysseus killed many Trojans until he himself was forced to retire when he was wounded in the side by a spear.

When Achilles was killed, Odysseus held the Trojans back while Ajax carried Achilles' body back to the Greek camp. During the funeral games, after a contest for the armour of Achilles, it was awarded to Odysseus as the hero who did the greatest service to the Greek cause during the war. This would result in the death of Ajax.

With the death Achilles and Ajax, Odysseus played even more active roles in the fall of Troy, climaxing with his stratagem of the Wooden Horse. He was the one who brought Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, to Troy, because of the oracle from the Greek seer Calchas. Odysseus was the one who captured the Trojan seer Helenus, son of Priam and Hecuba. Again on Calchas' advice, he and Neoptolemus also brought back Philoctetes with the bow of Heracles. And he and Diomedes volunteered to sneak into Troy and steal the wooden image of Athena, known as the Palladion. Helenus told the Greek leaders that Troy couldn't fall while the Palladion remained within the city walls.

He either killed Deiphobus, Helen's third husband, or he aided Menelaus, depending on which version is read. He was the who called for the execution of Astyanax, the only son of Hector and Andromache, and in some versions, actually carried out the execution by throwing the boy off Troy's highest rampart; however, Pausanias says that Neoptolemus was responsible for Astyanax's death, not Odysseus. When Ajax the Lesser raped Cassandra in front of the wooden image of Athena, Odysseus was the only one to call for his execution, to appease the goddess. When they distributed the Trojan women among the leaders, Odysseus received Hecuba as his slave. According to Euripides, Hecuba was transformed into a dog when she exacted revenge against Polymestor, king of Thrace, for the murder of her son, Polydorus.

After the fall of Troy, it took Odysseus another ten years to reach home. Homer's Odyssey tells this tale in full.

During his wandering, he was loved by two goddesses, whom he stayed with. One was a sorceress named Circe, daughter of the sun god Helios. The other was a nymph named Calypso, daughter of the Titan Atlas. Although Homer never mentioned Odysseus having children by either woman in the Odyssey, others - later writers - recorded that he had children with both women. According to the Theogony, Hesiod wrote that Calypso bore him Nausithous and Nausinous, while in the Telegony, she was also the mother of Telegonus or Teledamus. However, Telegonus is usually mentioned as being Circe's youngest son. I will mention more later about Circe and Telegonus.

Upon his return to Ithaca, Odysseus and Telemachus had to destroy Penelope's suitors who had infested his palace.

In Ithaca, his nurse was Eurycleia. Those who remained loyal to Odysseus and his family during his absence were Eumaeus the swineherd and Philoetius the cowherd, who helped him in the battle against the Penelope's suitors. Others loyal to Odysseus and his family were Dolius and Mentor.

The bow Odysseus used against the suitors originally belonged to Eurytus, the king of Oechalia. Iphitus gave his father's bow to Odysseus. (According to Homer, Eurytus was killed by Apollo instead of Heracles because he challenged the sun god to an archery contest.) His arrows may have been smeared with poison. Argus was the name of his hunting dog, and was one of two who recognised Odysseus in his beggar disguise. See Heracles for more information about Eurytus.

Some years later, after returning home to Ithaca, Odysseus had to set out on a new journey to appease Poseidon, as the dead Teiresias had foretold. Odysseus had to find a land where the people never ate with salt, nor knew what an oar was used for (mistaking it for a winnowing fan). Only then would Poseidon would make peace with the hero.

On Odysseus' return journey from a strange land, Odysseus came upon the land of Thesprotia where he married Callidice, the queen of Thesprotia. Odysseus led the Thesprotians in the war against the Brygi, but lost the battle because Ares was on the side of the Brygi. Athena went to support Odysseus by engaging the war god in another confrontation. When Callidice died, Odysseus returned to Ithaca, leaving their son Polypoetes to rule Thesprotia.

There is another story told by Parthenius about how Odysseus seduced Evippe, daughter of Tyrimmas, when he was in Epirus. Evippe gave birth to Eurylaus, and she sent her son when he was old enough to Euryalus. Penelope was the first to recognise one of the belongings of the young man, which Odysseus had given to Euryalus' mother so he could recognise his own son. So Penelope duped Odyseeus into killing his own son. I could find no other sources for this story, so this is most likely Parthenius' invention.

Odysseus and Penelope had another son named Acusilaus, according to the story in Telegony (Epic Cycle), but according to Apollodorus, their son was called Poliportes. Penelope bore Poliportes during Odysseus' absence in Thesprotia.

During his stay with his lover Circe, Odysseus had three sons - Agrius, Latinus and Telegonus. In one story, Telegonus one day went to search for his father, landing in Ithaca. Odysseus thought Telegonus was an intruder, and went out to drive the young man off his island. Telegonus unwittingly killed his father. As Teiresias had foretold, Odysseus' death had come from the sea.

Penelope and Telemachus knew that Telegonus would not have killed Odysseus had he known that the hero was his father. They forgave the young man and went with Telegonus to Circe's home, bringing Odysseus' body with them. On the sorceress' island, Telegonus married Penelope, while Circe married Telemachus. Circe made both Penelope and Telemachus immortal.

The mythographer Apollodorus also related this ending of Odysseus, but he also reported other versions unrelated to Telegonus. It was said that Penelope was not faithful at all during his long absence, and her suitor Antinous had seduced her. In anger, Odysseus banished Penelope, and she returned to her father Icarius in Sparta. During her exile, Hermes raped her, and she bore Pan. In another version, Odysseus killed Penelope because of her involvement with another suitor, Amphinomus.

In yet another version, Odysseus was tried by the kinsmen of the suitors. Neoptolemus, Odysseus' former comrade, acted as judge, and instead of acquitting Odysseus he banished him from Ithaca, because apparently Neoptolemus coveted Odysseus' island kingdom. Another former comrade of Odysseus, Thoas, king of Aetolia, offered him his daughter in marriage before Odysseus died of old age. Odysseus had another son named Leontophonus.

The death of Odysseus signified the end of the Heroic Age.