Telemachus- Greek HeroHero"Prince of Ithaca"

The Fatherless Prince

Telemachus was born on Ithaca to Odysseus and Penelope, but he barely knew his father. When the call to war came from Agamemnon, Odysseus feigned madness: warned by an oracle that Troy would keep him twenty years, he yoked a horse and an ox together and plowed the earth while sowing salt. Palamedes, sent to recruit him, placed the infant Telemachus in the furrow's path. Odysseus swerved the plow to save his son, proving his sanity and dooming himself to the war.

The boy grew up in a household without a father. Penelope waited, year after year. The Trojan War lasted ten, and Odysseus's troubled return took ten more. Telemachus passed through childhood and into young manhood knowing Odysseus only through the stories of others.

The Suitors

As years passed without Odysseus's return, the situation on Ithaca worsened. Over a hundred suitors from Ithaca and the surrounding islands descended on the palace, each seeking to marry Penelope and claim the kingship. They installed themselves as permanent guests, feasted on the household's cattle, drank the stores of wine. They devoured Telemachus's inheritance.

He was young and alone, without allies among the island's nobles, many of whom had sons among the suitors. Penelope held them at bay by weaving and unweaving a funeral shroud for Laertes, but after three years the deception was discovered.

The Telemachy

Athena, goddess of wisdom and Odysseus's patron, took pity on his son. Disguised as Mentes, an old friend of the family, she visited the palace and found Telemachus sitting among the suitors, daydreaming of his father's return. She told him to call an assembly and then sail to the mainland for news of his father.

Telemachus called the first assembly on Ithaca since Odysseus had sailed. He denounced the suitors before the gathered people. They were unmoved. That night, with Athena disguised as Mentor at his side, he slipped out of the harbor while the suitors slept.

At Pylos, the aged Nestor received him with full hospitality. A sacrifice to Poseidon was underway, and the young prince was welcomed to the feast. Nestor could not confirm whether Odysseus lived or died, but he sent Telemachus onward to Sparta with his own son Pisistratus.

At Sparta, Menelaus and Helen received him, both moved to tears by his resemblance to Odysseus. Menelaus told how he had wrestled the shape-shifting sea god Proteus on the island of Pharos and forced him to reveal the fates of the Greek heroes. Proteus confirmed that Odysseus still lived, trapped on the island of the nymph Calypso. This was the news Telemachus had crossed the sea to find. Helen gave him a robe she had woven herself, a gift for his future bride.

Return and Reunion

While Telemachus was abroad, the suitors laid an ambush, stationing a ship in the strait between Ithaca and Same to kill the prince on his return. Athena warned him, and he guided his ship home by another route under cover of darkness.

He landed not at the palace but at the hut of the loyal swineherd Eumaeus. There he found a ragged beggar: Odysseus, recently arrived, disguised by the goddess's magic. When Athena lifted the disguise, father and son embraced and wept. Homer compares their cries to those of birds whose young have been taken. For the first time in twenty years, Telemachus had a father.

The Slaughter of the Suitors

Father and son planned their revenge. Odysseus would enter the palace as a beggar. He would endure the suitors' abuse and test the household's loyalty. Telemachus would remove the weapons from the great hall and hide them.

Patience was the hardest part. Telemachus watched his father insulted and struck, and could not react. He watched Penelope weep without revealing the truth. He held himself through the contest of the bow, when the suitors tried and failed to string Odysseus's great weapon, and when the beggar took it up and sent an arrow through twelve axe-heads.

When the killing began, Telemachus fought alongside his father, the swineherd Eumaeus, and the cowherd Philoetius against over a hundred men. He armed himself and the loyal servants from the storeroom and killed several suitors with his spear. He made one error: he left the storeroom door unlocked, and the suitors armed themselves. He admitted the mistake to his father.

After the suitors were slain, Penelope tested Odysseus with the secret of their marriage bed before accepting his return. The next day, three generations stood against the vengeful kin of the dead. Athena gave Laertes strength. Odysseus led. Telemachus held the line. Peace came by Athena's command.

The Telegony

The lost epic known as the Telegony, surviving only in Proclus's summary, told of Odysseus's death at the hands of Telegonus, his son by Circe. Telegonus came to Ithaca unknowing and killed his father with a stingray-spine spear. Telemachus married Circe. Telegonus married Penelope. Circe made them all immortal.