Odysseus

Odysseus is the counter-argument to Achilles. Where the Iliad's greatest warrior is defined by rage and strength, Odysseus is defined by cunning: Homer's standing epithet for him is polytropos, 'of many turns', which means both resourceful and, uncomfortably, devious.

Troy falls because of him. The wooden horse is his idea, and the ten-year siege ends with a trick rather than a battle. He is also the one who talks Achilles' armour away from Ajax, which drives Ajax to suicide — the myths are clear that his gift has a cost, usually paid by someone else.

The journey home takes another decade because he blinds Polyphemus and then shouts his real name back at the island, letting the Cyclops name him in a prayer to Poseidon. Everything after that — the Lotus-Eaters, Circe, the Sirens, Scylla, the cattle of the sun, seven years on Calypso's island — follows from that one moment of pride.

He gets home alone, everyone else dead, and has to fight for his own house. Even then he does it by disguise: he arrives as a beggar and reveals himself only when the trap is set. The recognition scene with Penelope, who tests him with a secret about their bed, is one of the oldest and best in literature.

Homer opens the poem by asking the Muse for the man of many turns, and the ambiguity in that phrase is deliberate. The same quality that gets the crew out of the cave gets them killed at the cattle of the sun, and the same tongue that wins Achilles' armour destroys Ajax. The Odyssey admires him without ever quite endorsing him.