The Odyssey begins after the end of the ten-year Trojan War (the subject of the Iliad), from which Odysseus (also known by the Latin variant Ulysses), king of Ithaca, has still not returned because he angered Poseidon, the god of the sea. Odysseus' son, Telemachus, is about 20 years old and is sharing his absent father's house on the island of Ithaca with his mother Penelope and the suitors of Penelope, a crowd of 108 boisterous young men who each aim to persuade Penelope for her hand in marriage, all the while reveling in the king's palace and eating up his wealth.