To him the capture of Troy is chiefly to be ascribed, since by him the obstacles were removed, which had so long prevented it. For as Ulysses himself was detected by Palamēdes, so he in his turn detected Achilles, who, to avoid engaging in the same war, had concealed himself in the habits of a woman, at the court of Lycomēdes, king of Scyros. Ulysses there discovered him, and as it had been foretold that without Achilles Troy could not be taken, thence drew him to the siege. He also obtained the arrows of Hercules, from Philoctētes, and carried off that hero from the scene of his retreat. He brought away also the ashes of Laomĕdon, which were preserved in Troy on the Scœan gate. By him the Palladium was stolen from the same city; Rhesus, king of Thrace, killed, and his horses taken before they had drank of the Xanthus. These exploits involved in them the destiny of Troy; for had the Trojans preserved them, their city could never have been conquered. Ulysses contended afterwards with Telamonian Ajax, the stoutest of all the Grecians, except Achilles, for the arms of that hero, which were awarded to him by the judges, who were won by the charms of his eloquence. His other enterprises before Troy were numerous and brilliant, and are particularly related in the Iliad. When Ulysses departed for Greece, he sailed backwards and forwards for twenty years, contrary winds and severe weather opposing his return to Ithăca. During this period, he extinguished, with a firebrand, the eye of Polyphēmus; then sailing to Æolia, he obtained from Æŏlus all the winds which were contrary to him, and put them into leathern bags; his companions, however, believing these bags to be full of money, entered into a plot to rob him, and accordingly, when they came on the coast of Ithăca, untied the bags, upon which the wind rushing out, he was again blown back to Æolia. When Circe had turned his companions into swine and other brutes, he first fortified himself against her charms with the herb Moly, an antidote Mercury had given him; and then rushing into her cave with his drawn sword, compelled her to restore his associates to their original shape. He is said to have gone down into hell, to know his future fortune, from the prophet Tiresias. When he sailed to the islands of the Sirens, he stopped the ears of his companions, and bound himself with strong ropes to the ship's mast, that he might secure himself against the snares into which, by their charming voices, passengers were habitually allured. Lastly, after his ship was wrecked, he escaped by swimming, and came naked and alone, to the port of Phæacia, in the island of Corcyra, where Nausicăa, daughter of king Alcinŏus, found him in a profound sleep, into which he was thrown by the indulgence of Minerva.