Concept

Calchas

Summary

Calchas (ˈkælkəs; Κάλχας, Kalkhas) is an Argive mantis, or "seer," dated to the Age of Legend, which is an aspect of Greek mythology. Calchas appears in the opening scenes of the Iliad, which is believed to have been based on a war conducted by the Achaeans against the powerful city of Troy in the Late Bronze Age. Calchas, a seer in the service of the army before Troy, is portrayed as a skilled augur, Greek ionópolos ('bird-savant'): "as an augur, Calchas had no rival in the camp." He received knowledge of the past, present, and future from the god, Apollo. He had other mantic skills as well: interpreting the entrails of the enemy during the tide of battle. His mantosune, as it is called in the Iliad, is the hereditary occupation of his family, which accounts for the most credible etymology of his name: “the dark one” in the sense of “ponderer,” based on the resemblance of pondering to melancholy, or being “blue.” Calchas has a long literary history after Homer. His appearance in the Iliad is no sort of “first” except for the chronological sequence of literature. In the legendary time of the Iliad, seers and divination are already long-standing. Calchas was described by the chronicler Malalas in his account of the Chronography as "short, white, all grey, including the beard, hairy, a very fine seer and omen-reader". Calchas was the son of Polymele and Thestor; grandson of the seer Idmon; and brother of Leucippe, Theonoe, and Theoclymenus It was Calchas who prophesied that in order to gain a favourable wind to deploy the Greek ships mustered in Aulis on their way to Troy, Agamemnon would need to sacrifice his daughter, Iphigeneia, to appease Artemis, whom Agamemnon had offended. The episode was related at length in the lost Cypria, of the Epic Cycle. He also states that Troy will be sacked on the tenth year of the war. In Sophocles' Ajax, Calchas delivers a prophecy to Teucer suggesting that the protagonist will die if he leaves his tent before the day is out. In the Iliad, Calchas is cast as the apostle of divine truth.

Official source

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calchas

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