T., the son of Odysseus and Penelope, who is still a child when his father departs for the Trojan Wars, only appears as a figure in his own right in the first four books of Homer’s Odyssey, the so-called Telemachy (Hom. Od. 1–4). There, he attempts to prevent the suitors who swarm around his mother during the long years of Odysseus’ absence from seizing control of Ithaca. Too young and inexperienced to contend with the suitors for the thro…