Key Info

- King of Ithaca 

- Most famous for his 10-year journey home, detailed in the Odyssey, after the Trojan War 

Brief Bio

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, and he is thus known by the epithet Odysseus the Cunning. He is most famous for his nostos, or "homecoming", which took him ten eventful years after the decade-long Trojan War.