The Greek hero OdysseusGreek hero who journeyed for ten years to return home after the Trojan War was known to the Romans as Ulixes, which became Ulysses in English. This name has been used in English translations of Homer's(ca. 700s B.C.) Greek poet thought to be the author of the great epics the Iliad and the Odyssey Iliad and Odyssey since the l600s and in other literature based on the life of Odysseus.

In Dante's The Divine Comedy, written in the late 1200s, a character named Ulysses told of a voyage beyond the Pillars of Hercules—two peaks at the western entrance to the Mediterranean. His goal was to explore the unknown world, and he and his crew sailed westward for five months. Just as they sighted land, a fierce storm destroyed their ship and killed them.

In the...