O is for... Odysseus

The Doctor encountered the Greek hero Odysseus on the plains of Troy. Intensely cynical, he refused from the outset to believe that the Doctor was an earthly incarnation of Zeus until he had proof of his divinity. The Doctor had been invited to the Greek camp by Achilles, who had thought him Zeus in the form of a beggar. 

Odysseus was the king of Ithaca, and was a great rival of the younger Achilles. He employed a spy known as Cyclops, because he had only one eye, to monitor the Trojans as well as root out possible enemy agents. Steven was caught near the Greek camp and assumed to be a Trojan spy, and the Doctor fell under Odysseus' suspicion when it became clear that he knew him.

He challenged the Doctor to devise a scheme to capture Troy within three days. Thinking the Wooden Horse an invention by Homer, the Doctor at first suggested tunnels and then launching soldiers into the city by glider. All were dismissed by Odysseus and he was eventually left with the Horse.

The Doctor then discovered that Odysseus expected him to accompany the party who would hide within the Horse under his command.

Troy fell, and Odysseus slew King Priam and his son Paris during the carnage. The prophetess Cassandra was taken as a spoil of war, and she cursed Odysseus that he would not get home until the same number of years as the Greeks had laid siege had passed. He ignored this, then confronted the Doctor who managed to slip into the TARDIS. It dematerialised - leaving the Ithacan to wonder if he hadn't been Zeus after all.

Played by: Ivor Salter. Appearances: The Myth Makers (1965).

• Second of three appearances in the series by Salter. The first was the Morok Commander in The Space Museum, and the last was the police sergeant in Black Orchid.
• Odysseus (Ulysses or Ulixes to the Romans) did get home the long way round as Cassandra had prophesied, or so Homer tells us in, spoilers, The Odyssey. He and his crew had adventures with the Cyclops Polyphemus and the Lotus Eaters amongst many others, and didn't get back to Ithaca for 10 years. His Queen, Penelope, was being courted by several suitors as he was thought to be dead, but she procrastinated for years. A series of challenges were set up, the winner to wed her, and an incognito Odysseus joined this competition - ultimately winning the hand of his own wife.