Ulysses

Also known as: noble son of Laertes / son of Laertes · Family: Achaeans · Role: captain · First appears: BOOK I

🌐 Also appears in: Greek Mythology — A Family Orrery (as Odysseus) · The Odyssey (as Ulysses) · The Aeneid (as Ulysses) · The Metamorphoses of Ovid (as Ulysses) · Greek Tragedy — The Same Myth, Three Voices (as Odysseus) · The Divine Comedy (as Ulysses)

In Book I, Ulysses commands the ship Agamemnon sends to Chryseis and her father, Chryses, carrying sacrificial offerings to Apollo; he returns Chryseis to Chryses. In Book II, Minerva orders him to stop the Achaeans from sailing home. He beats Thersites in the assembly after Thersites abuses Agamemnon. Ulysses is identified as the son of Laertes and the father of Telemachus, and Eurybates serves him.

In Book III, Ulysses goes with Menelaus as an envoy and measures the ground with Hector before Hector’s duel. In Book IV, after Antiphus kills his comrade Leucus, Ulysses retaliates by killing Democoon. In Book IX, Agamemnon sends him with Phoenix and Ajax son of Telamon to persuade Achilles to return to battle; though Achilles and Ulysses had been described as enemies, Achilles calls him “still dearest to me of the Achaeans.” In Book X, Ulysses and Diomed capture Dolon, learn the Trojan and Thracian dispositions, and return with the horses of Rhesus.

In Book XI, Socus wounds Ulysses, but Minerva prevents the spear from reaching his entrails; Ulysses also joins Menelaus and Ajax son of Telamon in defending a wounded comrade. In Book XIV, he rejects Agamemnon’s proposal to abandon Troy. In Book XXIII, Ulysses and Ajax son of Telamon are declared equal winners after neither can defeat the other in wrestling.