Telemachus (1193 BC-) was the son of King Odysseus of Ithaca and Queen Penelope. He notably developed a rivalry with his mother's suitors while his father embarked on a perilous, ten-year-long voyage home from the Trojan War, and, on his father's return in 1173 BC, father and son massacred the 108 suitors and reclaimed Ithaca's palace for their family.
Biography[]
Telemachus was born on the Greek island of Ithaca in 1193 BC, the son of Odysseus and Penelope. While Telemachus was still a newborn, Odysseus was forced to take up arms alongside the Mycenaean kings Agamemnon and Menelaus during the Trojan War, and he made his wife promise that, if he died or failed to return before Telemachus could grow a beard, she should remarry, while leaving the kingdom to their son.
Telemachus in 1178 BC
Telemachus was raised by his mother, his grandmother Anticlea, and his father's trusted servants, and he grew up in a palace which was occupied by 108 suitors who ate of Odysseus' cattle and drank his wine while waiting for Penelope to marry one of them, presuming that, with the return of almost all of the other Greek princes who took part in the war with Troy, Odysseus had died on the return voyage. However, in 1173 BC, Athena appeared to Telemachus in the form of his father's servant Mentor and had him travel to Sparta to meet with King Menelaus and investigate his father's whereabouts. Menelaus and Helen told contradictory stories of Odysseus' exploits at Troy, but, on his return to Ithaca and reunion with his father's swineherd, Eumaeus, Telemachus was greeted by his father. Telemachus initially failed to recognize the man before him and drew his sword at him, angrily accusing him of mocking him by claiming to be his father, but Odysseus recounted how he used to hold Telemachus in his hands along the shore and lift him for the world to see; Telemachus became convinced of his father's identity, and he, his father, and their servants Eumaeus and Philoetius planned to massacre the suitors and free their palace of the suitors' defiling. Athena later had Odysseus disguised as an old man so that only Telemachus knew his identity, and Telemachus brought the "pauper" into the palace as his guest. When Penelope challenged the suitors to string Odysseus' bow and shoot an arrow through the handle-holes of twelve axe-heads, the pauper succeeded in the task, and he then revealed himself. Odysseus proceeded to sit on his throne and whisper to Telemachus that the time for his anger had come, and Telemachus proceeded to run and spear his archnemesis, the suitor Antinous. Telemachus, Odysseus, Eumaeus, and Philoetius proceeded to massacre all 108 suitors, and they went on to live happily as a family once again.
In 1160 BC, however, Odysseus' unknown son by Circe, Telegonus, attacked the island, mistaking it for Corcyra. When Odysseus and Telemachus rode out to meet the invaders, Telegonus killed the island's ruler in melee, unaware that he had just killed his father. Telegonus went on to remarry to Oedipus' widow and Telemachus' mother, Penelope; at around the same time, Telemachus married Princess Nausicaa of Scheria, who had rescued his shipwrecked father years earlier. With Nausicaa, Telemachus fathered Perseptolis.