After ten years of stalemated fighting in the Trojan War, King Odysseus of Ithaca leads his men in a successful invasion of Troy using the Trojan Horse. While sacking the city, Odysseus receives a vision from the god Zeus informing him that if he does not kill the infant Astyanax, son of the Trojan prince Hector, the boy will eventually grow up to seek vengeance against Odysseus and his family. Odysseus struggles with the decision, thinking of his own son.
Following the destruction of Troy, Odysseus and his fleet of six hundred men set sail towards their home in Greece. He and his best friend Polites decide to explore a nearby island to search for food. Seeing Odysseus' guilt over his actions during the war, Polites tries to convince him to move on with a kinder outlook on the world. They encounter the mischievous lotus-eaters, who direct them to find food in a cave on an island further to the east. At this moment, the goddess of wisdom and war, Athena, who has mentored Odysseus since boyhood, sees his non-violent compromise with the lotus-eaters as weakness and straying from her teachings. She appears to him, replaying the memory of when they first met, in order to remind him of her expectations.
