Antinous was born to Eupeithes, a nobleman of Ithaca and one of the leading men of the island kingdom. His father had once faced death at the hands of a mob that would have killed him for political reasons had Odysseus not intervened, saved his life, and sheltered him in the palace. That debt of hospitality and protection was one of the oldest bonds in Greek society, ratified by Zeus himself as the god of guests and suppliants. Antinous grew up in a house that owed its existence to the king whose throne he would one day try to seize. When Odysseus sailed for Troy and did not return, when year after year passed with no word from the war or the wandering that followed it, Antinous joined the crowd of young nobles from Ithaca and the surrounding islands who gathered in the palace to court Penelope, the most faithful wife in Greek myth, who wove a shroud for her father-in-law Laertes by day and unravelled it by night to keep the suitors at bay.

There were many suitors - some accounts say a hundred and eight, drawn from Ithaca, Same, Zacynthos, and Dulichium - but Antinous stood at their head. Where others were merely greedy or lazy, Antinous was actively dangerous. He was the one who shaped the suitors from a disorderly mob into a political threat. When Telemachus, the son of Odysseus and Penelope, grew old enough to challenge them, Antinous recognised the danger immediately. The young prince had travelled to Pylos and Sparta, where Nestor, the aged king of Pylos who had fought at Troy, and Menelaus, the king of Sparta whose abducted wife Helen had caused the war, treated him as an equal and an heir. A Telemachus who had been welcomed by kings was a Telemachus who could no longer be dismissed as a boy. Antinous proposed a plan to the other suitors: they would lie in wait for Telemachus' ship on its return voyage and kill him at sea. The murder would look like an accident, the prince would never reach Ithaca, and the suitors could divide Odysseus' property among themselves, giving the palace to whichever of them married Penelope.

The ambush failed. Athena, the grey-eyed goddess of wisdom who had always favoured Odysseus and his house, appeared to Telemachus in a dream and warned him to sail by a different route. He reached Ithaca safely, and the suitors' plot was exposed. Penelope herself confronted Antinous in the hall, reminding him before the assembled nobles that Odysseus had saved his father's life, that the bond between their houses was sacred, and that to plot against her son was to violate the very hospitality that had kept Eupeithes alive. Antinous stood silent, offering no defence. Eurymachus, the second most prominent suitor, stepped forward to soothe Penelope with false words, claiming that Antinous alone was responsible and that the rest of them would protect Telemachus. But the damage was done. The suitors had moved from mere consumption to attempted murder, and the gods were watching.

When Odysseus finally returned to Ithaca, he came in the disguise of a beggar, a ragged old man leaning on a staff, his face darkened by Athena's magic so that no one would recognise him. He made his way to the palace and sat among the suitors, asking for scraps of food. Most of the suitors ignored him or tossed him a crust. Antinous was crueller. He mocked the beggar, called him shameless for approaching the nobles' table, and when the disguised king asked for a proper share, Antinous seized a wooden stool and threw it at him, striking Odysseus on the shoulder. The other suitors gasped, for to strike a beggar was to risk the anger of the gods, who wander the earth in disguise to test the hospitality of mortals. But Antinous felt no fear. He had already violated every other law of guest-friendship; one more insult meant nothing to him.

The end came on the day Penelope declared she would marry the man who could string Odysseus' great bow and shoot an arrow through twelve axe-heads set in a row. The bow was a gift from Iphitus, the son of Eurytus, whom Heracles had later murdered in a fit of madness, and it was so stiff that not even the strongest suitor could bend it. One after another they tried and failed, their muscles straining, the bow refusing to yield. Then the beggar asked for a turn. The suitors laughed. But Odysseus took the bow, strung it with a single fluid motion, and sent an arrow singing through the axe-rings. He nodded to Telemachus, who stood armed at his side, and the slaughter began.

Antinous was the first to die. He never saw it coming. He was lifting a golden cup to his lips, drinking wine from Odysseus' own stores, when the arrow struck him square in the throat. The cup fell from his hand, wine and blood spilled across his tunic, and he crashed backward onto the table, dead before he hit the ground. The other suitors, still not understanding what was happening, thought it was an accident. They demanded that the beggar explain himself, threatening him with death for killing the greatest nobleman in Ithaca. Then Odysseus threw off his rags, stood before them in his true form, and told them that their doom was sealed. He would not stop, he said, even if they offered him all their wealth in restitution. What they had done could not be paid for with oxen and gold.

The slaughter that followed left every suitor dead. Telemachus, the swineherd Eumaeus, and the cowman Philoetius fought at Odysseus' side, and the hall ran with blood. When the last suitor fell, Odysseus ordered the disloyal maidservants who had slept with the suitors to be hanged in the courtyard, and the goatherd Melanthius, who had supplied the suitors with weapons, was mutilated and left for the dogs. But the vengeance was not complete. When the families of the dead suitors heard what had happened, they gathered at the palace gates. Eupeithes, Antinous' father, led them. He had forgotten that Odysseus had once saved his life, and he called for revenge against the man who had killed his son. He raised a force of armed men and attacked the palace. But Laertes, Odysseus' aged father, struck Eupeithes down with a spear, and the revolt collapsed. The house of Odysseus stood secure, and the name of Antinous became a byword for the arrogance that consumes what does not belong to it.