King of Ithaca famed for cunning rather than brute strength. Deviser of the Trojan Horse and protagonist of Homer's Odyssey, his ten-year voyage home after the Trojan War.
Homer's Odyssey opens by calling Odysseus "the man of many ways," polytropos, a word that captures both his resourcefulness and his tendency to shift identity and story to survive. He is a leading Greek commander at Troy, but his signature contribution is the wooden horse, the trick that finally brings down the city after nine years of open siege failed to.
The Long Way Home
The Odyssey follows his ten-year journey back to Ithaca, delayed by the sea-god Poseidon's anger after Odysseus blinds his son, the Cyclops Polyphemus. Along the way he survives the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, the sorceress Circe, the nymph Calypso's island, and a journey to consult the dead in the underworld. He loses every one of his men before reaching home alone.
Reclaiming Ithaca
On Ithaca, disguised as a beggar, Odysseus finds his household overrun by suitors pressuring his wife Penelope to remarry and his son Telemachus struggling to assert authority. He strings his own great bow, a feat none of the suitors can manage, and with Telemachus and two loyal servants slaughters the suitors, restoring his household and his marriage.
Parentage
Mortal parent: Laertes, king of Ithaca (mother: Anticlea)
A minor, disputed tradition outside Homer makes Sisyphus his true father; Homer treats him as Laertes's son.
Key Deeds
•Devised the Trojan Horse that ended the ten-year siege of Troy
•Blinded the Cyclops Polyphemus, earning Poseidon's enduring anger
•Resisted the Sirens' song by having himself bound to the mast
•Descended to the underworld to consult the dead
•Strung his own bow and slaughtered Penelope's suitors
Fate
Restored to his throne and marriage on Ithaca. A separate, later tradition (the lost epic Telegony, known only through summaries) has him killed by Telegonus, a son he never knew he had by Circe.
Primary Sources
Historical texts and references
“Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways, who was driven far and wide after he sacked the sacred city of Troy.”
“Odysseus alone devised the stratagem of the wooden horse, by which the leading Greeks entered Troy in secret.”
