After Achilles, Ajax is the most valuable warrior in Agamemnon's army ( along with Diomedes ), though he is not as cunning as Nestor, Diomedes, Idomeneus, or Odysseus, he is much more powerful and just as intelligent.

In Sophocles ' play Ajax, a famous retelling of Ajax's demise takes place — after the armor is awarded to Odysseus the hero Ajax falls to the ground, exhausted.

Homer is somewhat vague about the precise manner of Ajax's death but does ascribe it to his loss in the dispute over Achilles's shield: when Odysseus visits Hades, he begs the soul of Ajax to speak to him, but Ajax, still resentful over the old quarrel, refuses and descends silently back into Erebus.

We possess two declamations under his name: On Sophists, directed against Isocrates and setting forth the superiority of extempore over written speeches ( a more recently discovered fragment of another speech against Isocrates is probably of later date ); Odysseus ( perhaps spurious ) in which Odysseus accuses Palamedes of treachery during the siege of Troy

Briefly, the first Aeolus was a son of Hellen and eponymous founder of the Aeolian race ; the second was a son of Poseidon, who led a colony to islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea ; and the third Aeolus was a son of Hippotes who is mentioned in Odyssey book 10 as Keeper of the Winds who gives Odysseus a tightly closed bag full of the captured winds so he could sail easily home to Ithaca on the gentle West Wind.

Towards the end of Hesiod's Theogony ( 1011f ), we find that Circe bore Odysseus three sons: Ardeas or Agrius ( otherwise unknown ); Latinus ; and Telegonus, who ruled over the Tyrsenoi, that is the Etruscans.

" In an Etruscan bronze mirror relief, a common barnyard pig is depicted at the feet of Circe: Odysseus and Elpenor approach her, swords drawn.

Some Boeotian vase-paintings show a caricature version of the episode, acted out by dwarf pygmies with negroid attributes, and an aged and lame Odysseus leaning on a staff ; they are the mute survivors of some rustic comedy tradition that is impenetrable to us.

Throughout the poem, Odysseus is hindered by the efforts of Poseidon and the sea monsters throughout the ocean.

Thus, for example, Odysseus is represented in Hecuba ( lines 131-32 ) as " agile-minded, sweet-talking, demos-pleasing " i. e. a type of the war-time demagogues that were active in Athens during the Peloponnesian War.

There is a strong aristocratic bias in the poems demonstrated by the lack of any major protagonists of non-aristocratic stock, and by episodes such as the beating down of the commoner Thersites by the king Odysseus for daring to criticize his superiors.

Even earlier, a kind of primitive haggis is referred to in Homer's Odyssey, in book 20, ( towards the end of the eighth century BC ) when Odysseus is compared to " a man before a great blazing fire turning swiftly this way and that a stomach full of fat and blood, very eager to have it roasted quickly.

The Odyssey begins ten years after the end of the ten-year Trojan War that is the subject of the Iliad, and Odysseus has still not returned home from the war.

Odysseus ' son Telemachus is about 20 years old and is sharing his absent father ’ s house on the island of Ithaca with his mother Penelope and a crowd of 108 boisterous young men, " the Suitors ", whose aim is to persuade Penelope to marry one of them, all the while enjoying the hospitality of Odysseus ' household and eating up his wealth.

Odysseus ’ protectress, the goddess Athena, discusses his fate with Zeus, king of the gods, at a moment when Odysseus ' enemy, the god of the sea Poseidon, is absent from Mount Olympus.

She invited Odysseus ' crew to a feast of familiar food, a pottage of cheese and meal, sweetened with honey and laced with wine, but also laced with one of her magical potions, and she turned them all into swine with a wand after they gorged themselves on it.

She also advised Odysseus to go to the Underworld and gave him directions.

Notably he encountered the spirit of Agamemnon, of whose murder he now learned, and Achilles, who told him about the woes of the land of the dead ( for Odysseus ' encounter with the dead, see also Nekuia ).

* Similarly, Daniel Wallace's Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions ( 1998 ) adapts the epic to the American South, while also incorporating tall tales into its first-person narrative much as Odysseus does in the Apologoi ( Books 9-12 ).

Odysseus ( or ; Greek:, Odusseus ), also known by the Roman name Ulysses (; ), was the perhaps fictional 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 the Epic Cycle.

Polyphemus is shown to be blind and there was also a reference about Odysseus being responsible for blinding him under the alias of " Nobody ".

Atlas ' daughter Calypso would also bear Odysseus two sons, Nausithoos and Nausinous.

Homer also quote ' Sandy Pylos ' in Book 17 of the Odyssey about Telemachus travelling to Sparta in search of news of his father Odysseus.

The Cyclopes, usually children of Gods ( Olympians ) and nature spirits ( nereids, naiads and dryads ), are also compared to giants due to their huge size ( Polyphemus, son of Poseidon and Thoosa, and nemesis of Odysseus and Jason, comes to mind ).

It was renamed Ulysses, the Latin translation of " Odysseus " at ESA's request in honour not only of Homer's mythological hero but also with reference to Dante's description in Dante's Inferno.

Homer also calls Telemachus by the patronymic epithet " Odysseus ' son ".

Transformed into the goddess Leucothea, Ino also represents one of the many sources of divine aid to Odysseus in the Odyssey ( 5: 333ff ), her earliest appearance in literature.

* Macareus, a companion to Odysseus on his voyages, from Nericus, who also encountered Aeneas.

He also appears in Horace's Satire 2. 5, in which he advises Odysseus to take up legacy hunting.

He is also called Thoth and Ordo Maas, and is the ancestor of Odysseus, Merlin, and King Arthur.

The oracle also features in Odysseus's fictive yarn about himself told to the swineherd Eumaeus: Odysseus, he tells Eumaeus, has been seen among the Thesprotians, having gone to inquire of the oracle at Dodona whether he should return to Ithaca openly or in secret ( as the disguised Odysseus is actually doing ).

He was also a relative of Odysseus through marriage.

Variants to the story are found in later poets: for example, in a tragedy by Sophocles, Odysseus Acanthoplex ( which also does not survive ), Odysseus finds out from an oracle that he is doomed to be killed by his son.

Diomedes and Odysseus were charged with achieving this prophecy also.

The same damnation is imposed on Odysseus, who is also punished for having persuaded Achilles to fight in the Trojan war, without telling him that this would lead to his inevitable death.

Diomedes and Odysseus are also here for their part in the Trojan Horse.

On the next outflow of water, his raft was expelled, and Odysseus was able to recover it and paddle away to safety.

Chiron had told Jason that without the aid of Orpheus, the Argonauts would never be able to pass the Sirens — the same Sirens encountered by Odysseus in Homer's epic poem the Odyssey.

When the contest of the bow begins, none of the suitors are able to string the bow, but Odysseus does, and wins the contest.

Odysseus, however, reasoned that the spear that had inflicted the wound must be able to heal it.

The German archaeologist Wilhelm Dörpfeld, having performed excavations at various locations of Lefkada, was able to obtain funding to do work on the island by suggesting that Lefkada was Homer's Ithaca, and the palace of Odysseus was located west of Nidri on the south coast of Lefkada.

There is an interesting section in Homer's Odyssey when the suitors attempt to string Odysseus ' bow and are unable to do so, whereas Odysseus is able to string it without standing up.

Again, Odysseus weeps uncontrollably and is able to hide it from everyone except Alcinous who ends the singing and asks Odysseus who he really is.

* Ulysses Dragonblood-brother of Odysseus Indigo ; former member of Damocles Foundation, able to sedate others with a touch.

* Odysseus Indigo-CEO of Damocles Foundation, able to hypnotize others or nullify super-powers