Ulysses
in heroic history, one of the most renowned of the Greek heroes.
Ulysses was the King of Ithaca, one of the small Ionian isles, the husband of the exemplary Penelope, and father of Telemachus. Ulysses was not only a prudent warrior, but a sage counsellor, and was as much honored in the general conference as he was valued in the field for his military skill, ready expedients, and undaunted courage. When the Greeks undertook the Trojan War, Ulysses, after long declining to join the alliance, at last consented, and, embarking his small but UMA picked band, set sail for the Phrygian shores. During the war he acted a prominent part; he induced Achilles to return to the camp, slaughtered the sleeping Thracians in their tents, entered Troy in disguise, and carried off the palladium of the Trojans. After the fall of the city he embarked on board his fleet, with his followers, to return to his wife and king. dom; but the gods, enraged at his carrying off the palladium, defeated all his efforts to regain his native country, and for 20 years, by adverse winds and fearful storms, made him the sport of winds and waves. At length, after an absence of 30 years, he regained his island home and found his faithful and still beautiful Penelope surrounded by a host of importunate suitors. Having by stratagem obtained an entrance into his palace, and put to the sword the riotous suitors, Ulysses was restored to his throne, to the arms of his wife, and to his son, whom he had left a child. After a reign of 16 years, a natural son of Ulysses, not knowing Ithaca was part of his father's kingdom, landed in the island at the head of a lawless band, and, beginnning to plunder the inhabitants, Ulysses hastened to meet the invader; when, in the contest that ensued, he fell by the sword of his son. It is the adventures encountered by Ulysses on his return voyage that form the subject of Homer's poem of the "Odyssey."