Odysseus

Son of Laertes and Anticlea of Ithaca — *polytropos* (of many turns), the most resourceful of the Achaeans. In the *Iliad* he stands as Agamemnon's chief counsellor and as the army's diplomatic recovery (the rallying of the host in book 2, the embassy to Achilles in book 9, the night-raid with Diomedes in book 10). The Trojan Horse is his stratagem — Homer's bard Demodocus sings of it in the Phaeacian palace. The *Odyssey* tracks his ten-year homecoming through the Cyclops's cave, Circe's island, the Underworld at the edge of Ocean, the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, Helios's cattle on Thrinacia, and Calypso's Ogygia — at last to Ithaca and the slaughter of Penelope's suitors.

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