ULYSSES, t[-lys'-ses, called Odys'sens by the Greeks, the famous wily chief of Ithaca, son of Laertes (or SisIThus) and Anticlea (q. v.), succeeded to the throne of Ithaca on the abdication of Laertes. He married Penelope, after having advised Tynclatus to bind all the suitors of Helen by an oath to protect her. On the rape of Helen, Ulysses feigned madness to avoid going against Troy ; he yoked a horse and a bull together, ploughed the seashore, and sowed salt. But Palamedes (q. v.) de tected his dissimulation by placing Telema chus, the infant son of Ulysses, in the furrow, when he at once turned the plough aside. Ulysses afterwards detected Achilles (q.v.) in disguise at Lycomedes' court, and he brought Philoctetes (q. v.) against Troy, in the siege of which his cunning, prudence, and valour were conspicuous. With Diomedes' aid he slew Rhesus (q.v.), and carried off the Palladium, for which he was rewarded with the arms of Achilles, which Ajax disputed with him. On his return, after the capture of Troy, Ulysses was tossed about on the Mediterranean, and his wanderings have been immortalized in the Odyssey of Homer. He visited the Lotophagi, Cyclopes (see POLYPHEMUS), YEOlus, the Lm strygiines, and Circe at lEma, and descended to the nether world to consult Tiresias, and, when again on earth, passed unhurt the Sirenes, and between Scylla and Charybdis.
His comrades having stolen some sacred oxen of Apollo in Sicily, the god destroyed all the ships of Ulysses and drowned the crews ; Ulysses alone escaped, and was washed ashore on Ogygia, where he spent seven years with Calypso, who bore him two sons. He was ordered away by Mercury, and Calypso sup plied him with a ship; but Neptune, in revenge for the mutilation of his son Polyphemus, overwhelmed the ship. Ulysses swam ashore to Scheria, where he was found by the princess Nausicaa, who conducted him to her father Alcinilus. He was restored to Ithaca by the Phmacians ; he made himself known to his steward Eummus, and with his assistance, and that of his son Telemachus, he put to death all the suitors who had in his absence importuned Penelope" (q. v.) for her hand, and consumed his substance. He was killed in his old age by his son by Circe, TelegOnus (q. v.).