CALCHAS (mythical seer)

Agamemnon visited Calchas to convince him to join the expedition, and the seer claimed Apollo punished the Greeks because Agamemnon refused a ransom for Chryses’ daughter.^11,10 He was one of only four people who knew the true reason for the maiden’s summons, and he crowned her head with the sword.^4,12 Calchas then declared that the Greek fleet would sail after the sacrifice occurred, urging the sailors to leave the bays of Aulis and cross the Aegean.^13,14

During the siege, Calchas gathered the Greek leaders together to discuss their next military strategy and interpreted Zeus’s thunder and birds flying right as signs to stop besieging Troy.^5,15 He predicted the capture of the city in the tenth year and stated that Troy could not be conquered without Achilles.^16,17,18 As the war wore on, Calchas counseled the construction of a wooden horse and advised the warriors to return to their ships, praising Odysseus for devising a cunning plan to secure victory.^19,20,15 He also warned that divine Athena’s anger would lash at Ajax for a specific day, a prophecy whose accuracy proved his skill if Ajax survived the day as predicted.²¹

After the fall of Troy, Calchas returned and traveled to Clarus alongside the seer Amphilochus, the son of Amphiaraus.^22,23 There, he competed with Mopsus in a divination contest that also involved a dispute over sovereignty, where some accounts say Calchas asked about the sow while Mopsus asked about figs.^24,25,22 Calchas answered Mopsus’s question about the size of a sow’s litter with a single word.²⁶ He died of vexation after encountering this superior seer, collapsing when his luck deserts him and dying of a broken heart after his divination was proven wrong.^27,26,28

In his final days, Calchas traveled overland to Colophon with Leontes and Polypoetes, where he helped bury Teiresias, who had died in that place.²⁹ He is also said to have founded the city of Selge at an early period and led a group of displaced Trojans who settled in Pamphylia.^30,31 Though mild toward captives and a faithful seer to the Greeks, he shuddered at his own dread words and the backward-shrinking fires.⁶ The Messenger believed his prophecies contained wisdom, and his prophetic abilities were proven to be accurate and not in vain, leaving a legacy of a man who could clearly read the truths proclaimed by sacrificial viscera.^32,33,7