The Odyssey is an epic poem written by the ancient Greek poet Homer. It is a classic story that focuses on the main character Odysseus and his journey home to Ithaca after the end of the Trojan War. In The Odyssey, Homer portrays Odysseus as a well-balanced individual. In Homer's time, the Greeks believed that a well-balanced individual must possess three important characteristics: a clever mind, a fit body, and the ability to speak well. Odysseus embodies three important characteristics of the Greek vision of the well-balanced individual, which include resourcefulness, physical prowess, and the ability to speak well.
             A well-balanced individual such as Odysseus must be resourceful. Odysseus proves to be very resourceful when he hatches the brilliant idea to offer the citizens of Troy a large wooden horse, filled unknowingly to the Trojans, with Greek soldiers. Throughout his journeys, Odysseus' resourcefulness gets him out of some very tough situations, like when he escapes from the cave of the Cyclops in Book IX . Odysseus
             knows that the Cyclops will surely devour him and his remaining men, so he has to find a way to outwit the great Cyclops Polyphemus, son of Poseidon. Odysseus makes an
             offering of wine to Polyphemus, which he gladly drinks and falls fast asleep. Once asleep, Odysseus and his men go to work on the man-eating Cyclops. They poke out his
             only eye with a hot wooden spike and wait to make their escape, but Polyphemus decides to move the great door-stone away from the opening of his cave and just sit there waiting for any man silly enough to try to make an escape. Odysseus says, "But I kept thinking how to win the game: death sat there huge; how could we slip away? I drew on all my wits, and ran through tactics, reasoning as a man will for dear life, until a trick came - and it pleased me well" (IX 439). Odysseus decides to tie all of the Cyclops' fat rams together and he p...