Calchas

Calchas was the seer of the Greek army at Troy, the son of Thestor, who read the will of the gods in the flight of birds and in sacrifice. He told the Greeks that the war would last ten years, explained why Artemis held the fleet at Aulis and why Apollo sent a plague, and urged the stratagem that became the wooden horse. His career ended when he met a better seer.

Origins and Gift of Prophecy

Homer introduces him as “Calchas, son of Thestor, far the best of bird-readers”, who knew what is, what will be and what was before, and who guided the ships of the Achaeans to Ilion by the art of prophecy that Phoebus Apollo had given him (Homer, Iliad 1.69–72). The Iliad does not name his mother or his home.

The Omen at Aulis and the Ten Years

While the Greeks were gathered at Aulis, a snake came out from beneath the altar, climbed a plane tree, and devoured a mother sparrow and her eight young. Calchas read the portent as a sign from Zeus: the Greeks would fight for nine years and take the city in the tenth (Homer, Iliad 2.299–332; Apollodorus, Epitome 3.15). In Aeschylus he also interprets the two eagles that devoured a pregnant hare, and sees in them the two Atreidae, the capture of Troy in time, and the anger of Artemis (Aeschylus, Agamemnon 104–159).

Later, when the fleet was windbound at Aulis a second time, Calchas said that they could not sail unless the fairest of Agamemnon’s daughters was sacrificed to Artemis. In Apollodorus the goddess was angry with Agamemnon because, on shooting a deer, he had said that not even Artemis could have shot it better, and because Atreus had not sacrificed the golden lamb to her (Apollodorus, Epitome 3.21). Hyginus tells the same story, and says that Artemis substituted a deer for Iphigenia at the altar (Hyginus, Fabulae 98).

The Plague and the Quarrel

In the tenth year, Apollo sent a plague on the Greek camp. Achilles called an assembly, and Calchas, afraid of the anger of the most powerful of the Achaeans, asked for protection before he spoke. He then said that Apollo was angry not because of a vow or a sacrifice but because Agamemnon had dishonoured his priest Chryses, refusing to release his daughter and to take the ransom. The god would not lift the plague until the girl was returned to her father without ransom, and a sacrifice was taken to Chryse (Homer, Iliad 1.74–100). Agamemnon agreed to give up Chryseis but demanded Briseis in return, which led to the quarrel with Achilles on which the Iliad is built.

The Fall of Troy

When the war had already lasted ten years, Apollodorus says, Calchas prophesied that Troy could not be taken without the bow and arrows of Heracles, and Odysseus and Diomedes fetched Philoctetes from Lemnos (Apollodorus, Epitome 5.8). In Quintus of Smyrna, Calchas, whose heart was instructed by Apollo, by the flights of birds and by the stars, calls the chiefs together. He tells them of a falcon that could not catch a dove by force but killed her by lying in ambush, and urges them to stop besieging the walls and take Troy by a stratagem. Odysseus then proposes the wooden horse, and Calchas praises the plan and tells the Greeks to follow it; Sinon later tells the Trojans that the horse was made by Calchas’ counsel as an offering to Athena (Quintus of Smyrna, Fall of Troy 12).

The Death of Calchas

After the fall of Troy, Calchas left the ships with Amphilochus, Leonteus, Podalirius and Polypoetes and travelled by land to Colophon. It had been foretold that he would die if he met a diviner wiser than himself (Apollodorus, Epitome 6.2). At Colophon they were lodged by Mopsus, a son of Apollo and Manto, who competed with him in divination (Epitome 6.3). In the version that Strabo attributes to Hesiod, Calchas asked how many figs a small wild fig-tree bore, and Mopsus answered “ten thousand, a bushel, and one fig over”, which proved exact; then Calchas died. Pherecydes told it differently: Calchas asked about a pregnant sow, and Mopsus answered that she carried three young, one of them female; when this proved true, Calchas died of vexation. Strabo adds that in Sophocles’ lost play Helen Claimed Calchas was destined by fate to die when he met a prophet greater than himself, and that Sophocles placed the contest and his death in Cilicia (Strabo 14.1.27).

Apollodorus combines the two contests. Mopsus gave the correct count of the figs, and then, asked by Mopsus how many pigs a pregnant sow carried and when she would farrow, Calchas answered “eight”; Mopsus said that there were nine, all male, and that they would be born the next day at the sixth hour. When it happened so, Calchas died of vexation and was buried at Notium (Apollodorus, Epitome 6.3–4).

Calchas had cult after death. On the hill Drium in Daunia, in Italy, there was a hero-shrine of Calchas at the very top, where those who consulted the oracle sacrificed a black ram to his shade and slept in its hide (Strabo 6.3.9). Herodotus says that the Pamphylians descend from the Trojans who followed Amphilochus and Calchas (Herodotus 7.91).

Calchas Sources

Ancient sources: Homer, Iliad 1.69–72, 1.74–100, 2.299–332; Aeschylus, Agamemnon 104–159; Apollodorus, Epitome 3.15, 3.21, 5.8, 6.2–4; Hyginus, Fabulae 98; Quintus of Smyrna, Fall of Troy 12; Strabo 6.3.9, 14.1.27; Herodotus 7.91.

See Also: Trojan War, Agamemnon, Iphigenia, Achilles, Apollo, Artemis