Odysseus, known to the Romans as Ulysses, was the king of Ithaca, a small island in the Ionian Sea, and the hero of Homer’s Odyssey, the second great epic of the Trojan cycle. He was famous for his cunning, his eloquence, and his ability to devise plans where brute force failed. It was Odysseus who devised the Trojan Horse, the trick that ended the ten-year war. After Troy fell, Odysseus’s journey home took ten years, during which he and his crew encountered the Cyclopes, the enchantress Circe, the Sirens, the monsters Scylla and Charybdis, and the underworld itself. The phrase “Odyssean” has come to mean a long and adventurous journey.
Odysseus is the hero of the Odyssey, the second of the two great Homeric epics, and the figure whose travels from Troy to Ithaca provide the longest single connected narrative in archaic Greek poetry.
The Origins of Odysseus
Odysseus was the son of Laertes (or, in some traditions, of Sisyphus) and Anticleia, the daughter of Autolycus, the master thief. He was born on the island of Ithaca, a small and rocky island in the Ionian Sea off the western coast of Greece. He was said to have inherited his cunning and his eloquence from his maternal grandfather Autolycus, and he was also a descendant of the god Hermes on his mother’s side.
Odysseus married Penelope, the daughter of Icarius, the king of Sparta, and they had one son, Telemachus. According to some traditions, Odysseus won Penelope in a footrace, after her father challenged her suitors to a contest. According to others, Tyndareus, the king of Sparta, chose Odysseus to be his daughter’s husband because Odysseus had given him wise advice on how to manage the suitors.
Odysseus in the Iliad
In the Iliad, Odysseus is Greek heroes, second only to Achilles in fighting ability but superior to all in cunning. He is the king of Ithaca, a small but wealthy island, and he brings twelve ships to Troy. He is a member of the embassy sent to Achilles in Book IX of the Iliad, and his speech is considered the high point of diplomatic rhetoric. He is also the one who retrieves Achilles’s son Neoptolemus from Scyros to fight in the war.
Odysseus is also the one who, in the Iliad, fights with Ajax the Greater over the armor of Achilles. The armor is awarded to Odysseus, and Ajax, in his fury and despair, goes mad and slaughters a flock of sheep, thinking they are the Greek leaders. When he comes to his senses, he is so ashamed that he falls on his sword and kills himself. The story is the subject of Sophocles’s play Ajax.
The Trojan Horse
The defining achievement of Odysseus at Troy was the devising of the Trojan Horse, the trick that ended the ten-year war. According to the legend, after ten years of fruitless siege, Odysseus came up with a plan: the Greeks would build a great wooden horse, hide a force of armed men inside it, and leave it outside the walls of Troy as a supposed offering to Athena. The Greek army would then sail away, leaving only a single Greek, Sinon, to convince the Trojans that the horse was sacred. Once the Trojans brought the horse inside the walls, the hidden warriors would emerge and open the gates to the Greek army, which would have sailed back under cover of darkness.
The plan worked, and Troy fell. The Trojan Horse has become one of the most famous images in Western culture, and it is the origin of the term “Trojan horse” in computer security, meaning a malicious program disguised as a legitimate one.
The Journey Home: The Odyssey
Homer’s Odyssey is the story of Odysseus’s ten-year journey home from Troy, and it is one of the foundational texts of Western literature. The poem is divided into twenty-four books and is set in the forty days following Odysseus’s departure from the island of Ogygia, where he has been held captive by the nymph Calypso for seven years.
The Cicones
The first stop on Odysseus’s journey was the land of the Cicones, a Thracian people. Odysseus and his men raided the city and took plunder, but they lingered too long, and the Cicones returned with their neighbors and killed seventy-two of Odysseus’s men.
The Lotus-Eaters
The next stop was the land of the Lotus-Eaters, a people who ate a plant that made them forget their homes. Some of Odysseus’s men ate the lotus and lost all desire to return home. Odysseus had to drag them back to the ship by force.
Polyphemus
The most famous episode of the early Odyssey is the encounter with Polyphemus, the Cyclops. Odysseus and his men landed on the island of the Cyclopes, where they were trapped in a cave by Polyphemus, the son of Poseidon. Polyphemus, a cannibal, ate six of Odysseus’s men. Odysseus plied him with wine, told him his name was “Nobody” (or “Outis” in Greek), and then, when the Cyclops fell asleep, drove a sharpened stake into his single eye, blinding him. The blinded Cyclops called for help, but when the other Cyclopes asked who was hurting him, he said “Nobody,” and they left him alone. Odysseus and his men escaped by clinging to the bellies of Polyphemus’s sheep.
This act of blinding made Polyphemus furious, and he prayed to his father Poseidon to curse Odysseus. Poseidon agreed, and the god’s wrath would follow Odysseus throughout his journey.
Aeolus and the Bag of Winds
Odysseus visited Aeolus, the keeper of the winds, who gave him a bag containing all the winds except the west wind, which would carry him home. The crew, thinking the bag contained treasure, opened it when Odysseus was asleep, and the winds escaped, blowing the ship back to where they started.
The Laestrygonians
The Laestrygonians were a race of cannibal giants. They destroyed all of Odysseus’s ships except the one he was on, killing most of his men.
Circe
Odysseus and his men landed on the island of Circe, an enchantress who turned men into pigs. Hermes gave Odysseus the herb moly, which protected him from Circe’s magic. He threatened her, and she agreed to release his men. He and his crew stayed on her island for a year.
The Underworld
Odysseus descended to the underworld to consult the prophet Tiresias, who told him how to make it home. He saw the shades of many heroes, including Achilles, who told him that death was not to be desired even for the great.
The Sirens, Scylla, and Charybdis
Odysseus had to pass the Sirens, whose song lured sailors to their deaths, and the strait of Scylla and Charybdis, a six-headed monster and a great whirlpool. He plugged his men’s ears with beeswax and had himself tied to the mast so he could hear the Sirens’ song without being lured to his death. He passed Scylla’s cave, but she ate six of his men. He barely escaped Charybdis.
The Cattle of the Sun
Odysseus and his men landed on the island of Helios, the sun, where the cattle of the sun grazed. Odysseus was warned not to harm the cattle, but his men, starving, slaughtered some of them while Odysseus slept. Helios demanded that Zeus punish the sacrilege, and Zeus sent a storm that destroyed Odysseus’s ship, killing all his men. Odysseus alone survived, clinging to the wreckage of his ship.
Calypso
Odysseus drifted to the island of Ogygia, where the nymph Calypso held him captive for seven years, promising him immortality if he would stay with her. He refused, and the gods, finally taking pity on him, ordered Calypso to release him. She provided him with a raft and provisions, but Poseidon sent a storm that wrecked his raft, and he barely made it to the shore of Scheria, the land of the Phaeacians.
The Phaeacians
Odysseus was rescued by the Phaeacians, a people famous for their ships and their hospitality. Their king, Alcinous, hosted a feast in Odysseus’s honor, and Odysseus told the story of his wanderings. The Phaeacians then gave him a ship and sent him home to Ithaca.
The Return to Ithaca
Odysseus returned to Ithaca disguised as a beggar by Athena. He found that his palace was overrun with suitors for the hand of his wife Penelope, who had been waiting faithfully for twenty years. With the help of his son Telemachus and two loyal servants, Odysseus killed all the suitors and reunited with Penelope.
The Death of Odysseus
According to later tradition, Odysseus had a long and prosperous reign in Ithaca after his return. The manner of his death is not described in the Odyssey but is told in later sources. According to one tradition, he was killed by Telegonus, the son he had fathered on the witch Circe during his long stay on her island. Telegonus, seeking his father, came to Ithaca and, not recognizing him, killed him. According to another, he died of old age, and according to a third, he was made immortal and joined Circe on her island.
The Legacy of Odysseus
Odysseus is the hero of Homer’s Odyssey, retold in James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922), Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad (2005), Madeline Miller’s Circe (2018), and the Coen Brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). He is a central figure in the Percy Jackson series, the video game Hades, and the God of War franchise. The word odyssey has entered every major language as a name for any long, eventful journey. For the broader modern reception, see our guide to Greek mythology in modern culture.
A Note on Reading This Profile
A note on reading this profile. The Odysseus of the Odyssey is a careful, cunning, deceptive hero, and the question of whether he is morally good is one of the central problems of the Odyssey. The reader who wants the debate should consult Seth Schein’s The Mortal Hero: An Introduction to Homer’s Iliad and the corresponding book on the Odyssey (2012), and the standard scholarly reading of the Odyssey is the Heiden and Rabel commentary. The page above is written in the literary register, with the moral question treated as a separate issue.