Twenty years elapsed before Odysseus returned from the Trojan War. He lost his entire fleet and suffered many woes. Everyone thought he was dead, and a host of suitors barged into the house of Odysseus and demanded that his wife Penelope marry one of them.When Telemachus, the son of Odysseus, was old enough to assert himself, the suitors unsuccessfully tried to kill him. When Odysseus finally returned, he succeeded in overcoming the suitors and resumed his rightful place as the king of Ithaca.