For a man obsessed with ancient poetry, Boris Johnson's protracted political exit has had all the hallmarks of a classic Greek odyssey.
As the old adage goes, the Prime Minister's demise started very slowly. At a lockdown party as the country endured strict COVID-19 restrictions.
In the halls of parliament when he was accused of corruption for overhauling an independent system to combat sleaze in parliament.
And in the offices of 10 Downing Street as advisers pored over the results of two recent by-election losses.
But in the end, it came all at once as another scandal threatened to make his leadership untenable.
The PM's choice to appoint Conservative MP Chris Pincher to the position of deputy chief whip, despite knowing there had been accusations of sexual misconduct against him, was the final straw.
MPs who once proudly stood by Mr Johnson as he doggedly pursued the UK's divorce from the European Union slowly abandoned him one by one.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak and health secretary Sajid Javid delivered the first blow, with their high-profile resignations.
The timing of their announcement, delivered just as Mr Johnson's latest apology was being broadcast to the nation, was a twist of the knife.
A slew of resignations from within government followed the next day. Before the sun had set, a delegation of some of his most trusted allies was gathered inside Number 10.
They reportedly urged Mr Johnson to seek a "dignified exit" and resign. But the Prime Minister remained defiant, arguing there would be "chaos" if he quit.
What he had underestimated was the chaos that would occur if he remained. An open rebellion had broken out within his own party and it would take more than the Prime Minister's steady assurances to put it out.
If a narrowly won no-confidence vote had left him wounded in June, the open questioning of his integrity by his own colleagues signalled the end of his career.
Now the charismatic rogue who delivered the Conservatives their biggest majority since Margaret Thatcher's 1987 victory will also share her fate, resigning in disgrace after immense cabinet pressure.
How ambitious Al honed his image to become Boris
Despite becoming prime minister of the United Kingdom, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was actually born in New York, in 1964 — the son of a diplomat and an artist.
Even as a child, Boris Johnson had big ambitions. He wanted to be King of the World.
He didn't quite get there, but he did become one of the world's most powerful leaders.
As a former Eton classmate, Toby Young, once put it, the young Boris Johnson had "overweening ambition".
"He had the ability, the force of personality, the determination to get there," Mr Young told the ABC.
To his family, though, he was always "Al".
"Boris" didn't come until later, when he honed his image as a teenager at Eton, and later at Oxford, studying the classics.
His sister, Rachel Johnson, said her older brother realised from a young age that he could outwit his rivals by being deliberately evasive.
While he was always on the way to a political career, Mr Johnson started out as a reporter and rather enjoyed "being a leech and a parasite in the media world".
He was sometimes prone to embellishments and exaggeration and was even sacked from The Times of London for inventing a quote.
It didn't stop his journalistic career from thriving. As Brussels correspondent for The Telegraph, Johnson made a name for himself with a string of pieces critical of the European Union.
They even caught the eye of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who — at one time — considered him one of her favoured columnists.
From reporter to MP, mayor and finally PM
Yet his early successes as a correspondent were not enough to distract from his true ambition.
Eventually, Mr Johnson made the switch from reporter to politician, going on to have two stints in the British parliament over almost 20 years.
They bookended an eight-year run as mayor of London, a position that afforded him global notoriety and set him on a course to later lead the UK.
Mr Johnson relished his position and courted the media's attention.
Even stuck dangling metres above London on a zip line during the Olympics, Mr Johnson "seemed to take the buffoon and run with it", according to those watching below.
His political persona was something he continued to hone throughout his career, where his speeches dripped with bravado, bluster and wit.
Over the decades, he punctuated his addresses with phrases in Latin and ancient Greek: They could appear at any moment, as in a 2013 interview with Annabel Crabb, when he made a show of reciting parts of Homer's The Iliad.
While thoroughly British, he travelled extensively and had an affinity for Australia, which began during a gap year in 1983 that he once described as "unbelievable fun".
Mr Johnson was eternally criticised for being scant on detail and light on work ethic, but his optimistic and jocular tone appealed to tens of millions of Brits.
To them, the gaffes, the stunts, the offensive one-liners and the messy personal life didn't matter.
To many, he wasn't a punchline, but a politician with humility and humour that they could identify with.
According to close friend and British writer Matthew Leeming, Mr Johnson was a "communicator of genius".
"This is partly because Boris has an ability to articulate what the majority of people think and know," he said.
And Mr Johnson adored the attention.
The 'soul' of Conservatives but 'not the man you want driving you home'
Plenty, though, found him to be more focused on his own goals than a vision for the betterment of Britain.
Political historian Lord Peter Hennessy told the BBC that Mr Johnson had shown levels of "personal and political narcissism".
His career was not without some errors.
In 2004, he was sacked as shadow arts minister for lying to his party about an affair he'd had with a journalist.
In fact, the twice-married Mr Johnson always refused to say how many children he had fathered.
Perhaps one of his most serious missteps came as foreign minister, in 2017, when he was forced to concede he wrongly suggested a British woman who had been detained in prison in Iran had been teaching journalists at the time of her arrest.
She was subsequently jailed for five years, despite always insisting she was visiting relatives.
Over the years, many of his colleagues saw him as undisciplined and ill-suited to high office.
Former Tory MP Amber Rudd once said Mr Johnson was "the life and soul of the Conservative Party" but "not the man you want driving you home at the end of the evening".
Finding success as a critic of Europe
A Eurosceptic for decades, Mr Johnson backed Brexit in 2016.
It saw him pit himself against friends, colleagues and even family in one of the most divisive periods Britain has ever seen.
His decision to campaign for the UK to leave the European Union was a defining moment. And he played a key role in a saga that threatened to tear the United Kingdom apart.
While his rivals saw Brexit as an overwhelming and dangerous challenge, Mr Johnson saw an opportunity.
Brexit divided the Conservative Party and ended the prime ministerial careers of David Cameron and Theresa May, but it was the making of Boris Johnson.
It was upon his election as leader, on the steps of 10 Downing Street, that he gave one of his most defining speeches.
He told the British public that the "doubters, the doomsters and gloomsters" had got it wrong. He declared that no-one would ever again "bet against Britain".
When the UK went to the polls in December 2019, he was handed the biggest Tory majority in decades.
He told cabinet colleagues he'd be the most liberal Conservative Prime Minister in decades.
How Johnson was brought undone
Far from being defined by his policies, Mr Johnson's prime ministership has instead been mired in scandals.
Critics have accused the Conservative leader of cronyism and corruption, pointing to incidents like when WhatsApp messages revealed he had asked a Conservative Party donor for funds to refurbish his Downing Street residence.
The Conservative Party was fined 17,800 pounds ($31,317) after the Electoral Commission found it had failed to accurately declare all of Lord David Brownlow's donations towards the renovation.
Mr Johnson also stirred controversy when he asked the Queen to shut down Parliament for five weeks at the height of a political crisis over the UK's decision to leave the EU.
Critics said it was an attempt by the government to minimise Parliament's opportunity to block a no-deal Brexit.
But it was the furore over "partygate", the term used to describe parties involving government MPs and staff that were held while COVID restrictions were in place for much of the country, which first prompted doubts about Mr Johnson's political survival.
The revelations enraged a public that had sacrificed seeing dying loved ones for the sake of public health. For a while, it seemed he wouldn't survive.
Winning a no confidence motion kept him hanging on. But his 59 per cent share of the vote was less than the 63 per cent achieved by his predecessor Theresa May in her confidence vote of December 2018. She was ultimately forced to resign.
"Houdini Johnson has emerged scot-free time and again from debacles that would have sunk anyone else," writes Sonia Purnell, Mr Johnson's former colleague and author of Just Boris: A Tale of Blond Ambition.
That was until this week, when the high-profile resignation of his ministers revealed that Britain's leader was in a fight for his political life.
Mr Johnson may have believed himself ready for the task, having built his career on surviving scrapes. But no amount of charm, bluster or strategic manoeuvring could overcome the frustration of his own party members.
The man who wanted to be the country's longest-reigning prime minister may not even eclipse the woman he replaced.
