During the prolonged absence of Odysseus, the SUITORS OF PENELOPE began courting his wife. Penelope disliked the SUITORS’ attentions, and in order to win time fooled them with the help of The Shroud of Laertes, which she wove by day and unravelled by night.

Penelope is married to the main character, the king of Ithaca, Odysseus (Ulysses in Roman mythology), and daughter of Icarius of Sparta and Periboea (or Polycaste). She only has one son with Odysseus, Telemachus, who was born just before Odysseus was called to fight in the Trojan War.

Odysseus

When you think about The Odyssey, one name should come to mind, and that name is Odysseus. However, his wife Penelope is just as much a hero as he is. She is a hero because she waited for her husband’s return and she took care of the house while he was away.

Popularity. Penelope is the number 26 most popular girls name in the US, according to 2018 Social Security Administration data. It rose from obscurity in 2001 from spot 941, and has continued to grow in popularity since then. It broke and has remained in the top 30 names since 2016.

Odysseus’s wife, Penelope plays a crucial role in Homer’s ‘The Odyssey’, with not only providing the motivation for Odysseus’s return to Ithaca, but she is also the center of the plot involving the suitors and the fate of Telemakos and Ithaca itself.

She shows loyalty to Odysseus by waiting for his return for twenty long years. She did not choose a suitor until she knew for sure that Odysseus was dead. To delay the decision of choosing a suitor, Penelope said she would marry a suitor after she had finished weaving her shroud.

Why was Achilles considered a hero? Achilles was considered a hero because he was the most successful soldier in the Greek army during the Trojan War. According to post-Homeric myths, Achilles was physically invulnerable, and it was prophesied that the Greeks could not win the Trojan War without him.