Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Calchas.
The gallery
The Prophecy of Calchas (from The Story of Troy)
Unknown (Macao, for the European market), late 16th century
A silk-and-gilt tapestry from a Macao-woven Troy cycle (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 50.97.2): Calchas reads the omens that bind the Achaean war — the seer of Aulis and the Iliad rendered for a Renaissance collector's wall.
Calchas as Haruspex (Etruscan bronze mirror)
Unknown (Etruscan), 5th century BC
An Etruscan engraved mirror names Calchas (Chalchas) as a winged haruspex reading a liver — the Greek mantis recast in Italian ritual guise, proof of how early the Trojan seer travelled west of the Adriatic.
The Sacrifice of Iphigenia
Sébastien Bourdon, 1653
Bourdon's Aulis canvas gathers the priestly circle around the altar where Calchas names Artemis' price — the seer whose reading turns Agamemnon's fleet into a daughter's death.
The Sacrifice of Iphigenia (Pompeii fresco)
Unknown (Roman), 1st century AD
A peristyle fresco from Pompeii (Naples, MAN 9112) shows Calchas at the sacrifice of Iphigenia — the Homeric prophet as the ritual hinge that buys the winds for Troy.
On screen
Troy
Wolfgang Petersen
Petersen's war council keeps a Homeric prophet at Agamemnon's ear — Calchas as the voice that reads gods into strategy.
Iphigenia
Michalis Cacoyannis
At Aulis, Calchas names the goddess's price — Cacoyannis makes the seer's reading the hinge of the sacrifice.
In play
Calchas
Thestor's son who foresaw Troy's fall and his own death at a wiser seer's hands — Homer's chief Achaean prophet.
Iliad
Homer
Calchas names Chryses' insult and Apollo's plague — the seer whose omens open the wrath and whose Colophon contest closes the cycle.