09/06/2026
In Greek and Roman mythology, Odysseus, also known by the Latin variant Ulysses is a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem, the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in that same epic cycle.
As the son of Laërtes and Anticlea, husband of Penelope, and father of Telemachus, Acusilaus, and Telegonus, Odysseus is renowned for his intellectual brilliance, guile, and versatility (polytropos), and he is thus known by the epithet Odysseus the Cunning (Ancient Greek: μῆτις, romanized: mêtis, lit. 'cunning intelligence'. He is most famous for his nostos, or "homecoming", which took him ten eventful years after the decade-long Trojan War.
The majority of sources for Odysseus's supposed pre-war exploits—principally the mythographers Pseudo-Apollodorus and Hyginus—postdate Homer by many centuries. Two stories in particular are well known:
When Helen of Troy is abducted, Menelaus calls upon the other suitors to honour their oaths and help him to retrieve her, an attempt that leads to the Trojan War. Odysseus tries to avoid it by feigning lunacy, as an oracle had prophesied a long-delayed return home for him if he went. He hooks a donkey and an ox to his plow (as they have different stride lengths, hindering the efficiency of the plow) and (some modern sources add) starts sowing his fields with salt. Palamedes, at the behest of Menelaus's brother Agamemnon, seeks to disprove Odysseus's madness and places Telemachus, Odysseus's infant son, in front of the plow. Odysseus veers the plow away from his son, thus exposing his stratagem.] Odysseus holds a grudge against Palamedes during the war for dragging him away from his home.
Odysseus and other envoys of Agamemnon travel to Scyros to recruit Achilles because of a prophecy that Troy could not be taken without him. By most accounts, Thetis, Achilles's mother, disguises him as a woman to hide him from the recruiters because an oracle had predicted that Achilles would either live a long uneventful life or achieve everlasting glory while dying young. Odysseus cleverly discovers which among the women before him is Achilles, when Achilles is the only one of them to show interest in examining the weapons hidden among an array of adornment gifts for the daughters of their host. Odysseus arranges further for the sounding of a battle horn, which prompts Achilles to clutch a weapon and show his trained disposition. With his disguise foiled, he is exposed and joins Agamemnon's call to arms among the Hellenes.
