Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Chryseis.
The gallery
Odysseus Returns Chryseis to Her Father
Claude Lorrain, 1644
Claude stages the Iliad's first reconciliation as a luminous seaport: Odysseus escorts Chryseis back to Chryses amid classical quays and morning light. The priest's daughter whose ransom opened Book I becomes a quiet figure in a vast harbour world. Oil on canvas, Musée du Louvre, Paris.
Chryseis Returned to Her Father
Benjamin West, 1771
West's grand-manner canvas reunites Chryses with his daughter after Apollo's plague forced Agamemnon's hand — the priest's prayer answered, the captive restored beneath the god's statue. A companion piece in the New-York Historical Society's collection, it treats Chryseis as the moral hinge of Iliad Book I.
Chryses Ransoming Chryseis from Agamemnon
Painter of Athens 1714, c. 360–350 BC
Side A of an Apulian red-figure volute-krater from Taranto shows Chryses pleading before Agamemnon for his daughter's return — the Homeric embassy that Agamemnon refuses, unleashing Apollo's arrows. Chryseis stands as the contested prize at the origin of the Achaean quarrel. Musée du Louvre, Paris.
In play
Iliad
Homer
Book 1 opens on Chryses' daughter: Agamemnon's refusal to return Chryseis brings Apollo's plague, and her ransom is the first quarrel that unmakes the Achaean camp.
Chryseis
The priest's daughter of Chryse remains the Iliad's opening wound — the captive whose release costs Agamemnon his honor and Achilles his prize.