The names and terms you’ll meet most, in plain definitions. See also the timeline for how the events fit together.
People of the story
- Odysseus
- King of Ithaca; the poem’s hero, famous for his cunning mind.
- Penelope
- Odysseus’s wife, who holds the household together through twenty years of his absence.
- Telemachus
- Odysseus and Penelope’s son, a baby when his father sailed for Troy.
- The suitors
- The arrogant young noblemen besieging Penelope and devouring Odysseus’s wealth.
The war & its world
- Trojan War
- The legendary ten-year war in which a coalition of Greek kings besieged the city of Troy.
- Troy
- A real Bronze Age city in northwestern Turkey (the mound of Hisarlik); the war’s setting.
- The Iliad
- Homer’s other epic: the war at Troy itself, covering weeks of its final year.
- Mycenaeans
- The Late Bronze Age Greek civilization of warrior-kingdoms behind the legend’s kings.
- Nostos
- Greek for “homecoming”: the safe return home that drives the whole poem.
- Xenia
- Guest-friendship: the sacred Greek duty of hospitality between host and stranger.
- Bard
- A singer-poet who performed epics from memory — Homer’s own kind of artist.
Gods & powers
- Athena
- Goddess of wisdom and cunning; Odysseus’s steadfast divine protector.
- Poseidon
- God of the sea, whose grudge keeps Odysseus from reaching home.
On the journey
- Polyphemus (the Cyclops)
- The one-eyed giant, son of Poseidon, whom Odysseus blinds to escape.
- Circe
- A goddess-witch who turns men into pigs, then becomes Odysseus’s guide.
- Calypso
- The nymph who holds Odysseus on her island for seven years.
- The Sirens
- Creatures whose irresistible song lures sailors to their deaths.
- Scylla & Charybdis
- A six-headed monster and a ship-swallowing whirlpool guarding a narrow strait.
- Hades
- The underworld, land of the dead, which Odysseus visits to seek guidance.
- Tiresias
- The blind prophet Odysseus consults among the dead.
- Phaeacians
- The seafaring people who at last carry Odysseus home to Ithaca.