When Telegonus had grown to manhood, his mother Circe sent him in search of Odysseus, who by this time had finally returned to Ithaca from the Trojan War. Shipwrecked on Ithaca by a storm, Telegonus believed mistakenly that he had made landfall on Corcyra (Corfu) and, assailed by hunger, began plundering the island. Odysseus and his oldest son, Telemachus, defended their city and, in the ensuing melée, Telegonus accidentally killed his father with a lance tipped with the venomous spine of a stingray. Telemachus married Telegonus' mother, the enchantress Circe, while Telegonus took to wife Odysseus' widow Penelope.[6] By Penelope, he was the father of Italus who, according to some accounts, gave his name to Italy.[7] What appears to be later tradition holds that Odysseus would also be resurrected by Circe after he was killed by Telegonus.[8]
The story of Telegonus meeting his father was told in the Telegony, an early Greek epic that does not survive except in a summary, but that was attributed to Eugamon or Eugammon of Cyrene and written as a sequel to the Odyssey. Variants of the story are found in later poets: for example, in a tragedy by Sophocles, Odysseus Acanthoplex (which also does not survive), Odysseus finds out from an oracle that he is doomed to be killed by his son. He assumes that this means Telemachus, whom he promptly banishes to a nearby island. When Telegonus arrives on Ithaca, he approaches Odysseus' house, but the guards do not admit him to see his father; a commotion arises, and Odysseus, thinking it is Telemachus, rushes out and attacks. In the fighting, he is killed by Telegonus. This story has many similarities with the more well-known tale of Oedipus.
In Italic and Roman mythology, Telegonus became known as the founder of Tusculum, a city just to the southeast of Rome, and sometimes also as the founder of Praeneste, a city in the same region (modern Palestrina).[9] Ancient Roman poets regularly used phrases such as "walls of Telegonus" (e.g. Propertius 2.32) or "Circaean walls" to refer to Tusculum.
