Short answers, pulled from the story.
Odysseus is a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey. He is the son of Laertes and Anticlea, husband of Penelope, and father of Telemachus, and is renowned for his intelligence, guile, and versatility, earning the epithet Odysseus the Cunning.
The etymology of Odysseus is unknown. Ancient authors linked it to Greek verbs meaning to be wroth, to lament, or to perish. His grandfather Autolycus chose the name to commemorate his own quarrels with the world. Robert S. P. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek, possibly non-Indo-European origin.
Odysseus took ten years to return home to Ithaca after the decade-long Trojan War, meaning he was away from home for a total of twenty years. During the homeward journey he was held for seven years on the island Ogygia by the nymph Calypso.
The Trojan Horse was a large hollow wooden structure built by Epeius and filled with Greek warriors as a stratagem to smuggle soldiers inside Troy. Odysseus devised the plan and led the men concealed within it, and the ruse allowed the Greek army to sack Troy from the inside.
According to the lost epic Telegony, Odysseus was killed by his own son Telegonus, who had been born to him and Circe. Telegonus attacked his father with a spear tipped with a poisonous stingray spine given to him by Circe, before recognizing who he had struck. Before dying, Odysseus recognized his son.
The Romans, who saw themselves as descendants of the Trojan hero Aeneas, regarded Odysseus as the enemy who had engineered Troy's downfall. Virgil refers to him in the Aeneid as "cruel Odysseus" and "deceitful Odysseus," and Roman culture placed a high value on honor and duty that Odysseus's trickery violated.
Evidence from Ithaca includes public games called the Odysseia and a sanctuary known as the Odysseion. In 2025, researchers identified what is believed to be this sanctuary at the site Agios Athanasios in northern Ithaca, where two late Hellenistic inscriptions bearing the name of Odysseus were found alongside a bronze bust, clay votive fragments, jewelry, and over 100 coins dating from the 3rd century BCE to the 2nd century CE.