Telemachus

Only son of Odysseus and Penelope, born just before the Achaean fleet sailed for Troy and grown to manhood without ever seeing his father (Homer *Odyssey* 4.144 — Helen recognising him as 'the babe Telemachus that man left a newborn at home, when for the sake of dog-faced me you Achaeans went to Troy'; reaffirmed by Agamemnon's ghost at *Od.* 11.447–449). The first four books of the *Odyssey* — 'the Telemachy' — narrate his coming-of-age: Athena, disguised as the Taphian guest-friend Mentes, urges him to leave Ithaca in search of news of Odysseus (*Od.* 1.96–324); he sails first to Pylos and then by chariot inland to Sparta, returning under Athena's guidance just in time to evade the suitors' ambush off Asteris (*Od.* 15.1–300, 15.495–500). Reunited with Odysseus at Eumaeus's hut (*Od.* 16.155–212), he fights at his father's side in the slaughter of the suitors (*Od.* 22).

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