Whatever Happened to Odysseus?

The Odyssey Sequel You’ve Never Read (and probably wouldn’t want to)

If you’re reading this article, it’s likely that you’re already familiar with Odysseus, a legendary Greek hero and king of Ithaca who was the protagonist of the 8th-century epic poem, the Odyssey, written by Homer.

Odysseus (Roman: Ulysses) also featured in Homer’s Iliad, which took place during the semi-mythological Trojan War, in which he fought alongside other heroes, such as the demi-god Achilles (and was portrayed by Sean Bean in the 2004 movie Troy).

Ulysses (Roman name for Odysseus) Roman-imperial copy of an original from the Pergamon school dated between the end of the 3rd and the middle of the 2nd century BC, Venice National Archaeological Museum, image in the public domain

The stories of the Trojan War and the tales of Oydessus’ journey home took place even earlier, around the 12th/13th centuries BCE and were likely oral poems passed down by bards for many years before Homer penned the versions that we still read today.

Odysseus was known for his intelligence and guile and it was he who came up with the idea for the infamous Trojan Horse which allowed the Greeks to sneak into the city of Troy and begin razing it to the ground.

The Trojan Horse, from the 1914 book Myths and Legends of all Nations by Logan Marshall, image in the public domain

If you only know about Odysseus through his exploits in the Trojan War and its associated story in the…