Odysseus

Also known as: Ulysses · Family: Greek · Role: hero · First appears: Apollodorus, Library 3.10

🌐 Also appears in: The Iliad (as Ulysses) · The Odyssey (as Ulysses) · The Aeneid (as Ulysses) · The Metamorphoses of Ovid (as Ulysses) · Greek Tragedy — The Same Myth, Three Voices (as Odysseus) · The Divine Comedy (as Ulysses)

Odysseus, also known as Ulysses, was the son of Laertes and Anticlia—“Ulysses, son of Laertes and Anticlia.” He became a suitor of Helen and courted Penelope, promising Tyndareus a way to prevent quarrels among Helen’s suitors if Tyndareus helped him win Penelope; he then married Penelope. They had Telemachus, whom Odysseus later snatched from Penelope’s bosom when he was compelled to join the war.

At Troy, Odysseus found Achilles hidden at Lycomedes’ court and exposed him with a trumpet blast, bringing him to the war. Palamedes exposed Odysseus’s feigned madness, after which Odysseus falsely implicated Palamedes, who was stoned as a traitor with the involvement of Agamemnon. On the campaign, Odysseus abandoned Philoctetes on Lemnos by Agamemnon’s orders, later persuaded him to sail to Troy, captured Helenus, and learned how Ilium could be taken. With Helen and Diomedes, he stole the Palladium; with Diomedes, he killed Dolon and Rhesus in a night raid. He proposed the Wooden Horse to Epeus, held Anticlus’s mouth shut inside it, and helped secure Troy. He also competed with Ajax son of Telamon in wrestling, and with Menelaus rescued Glaucus.

After the war, Odysseus blinded Polyphemus with the help of four comrades, and “From that time Poseidon was wroth with Ulysses.” His companions released the winds given by Aeolus, driving them back, while the Laestrygones destroyed all but one of his ships. At Aeaea, Hermes’s moly protected him from Circe’s enchantment; he threatened Circe, who restored his transformed comrades, and later shared her bed, becoming the father of Telegonus. Circe also bore him Agrius and Latinus. Calypso was joined to him and bore Nausithous and Nausinous, while another account says she bore Latinus.