Talthybius (Ancient Greek: Ταλθύβιος) is herald and friend to Agamemnon in the Trojan War — the messenger who takes Briseis from Achilles' hut, fetches the sacrificial sheep before the duel of Menelaus and Paris, and summons the physician Machaon when Menelaus is wounded. In Euripides he becomes the reluctant bearer of hard news to the captive Trojan women; at Sparta and Argos he received hero-cult, and Herodotus names the Talthybiadae as hereditary Spartan heralds.
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I.In the Iliad
Homer's Talthybius serves Agamemnon as ready squire and herald. With Eurybates he leads Briseis from Achilles' tent after the quarrel; before the duel of Menelaus and Paris, Agamemnon sends him to fetch a sheep for the oath-sacrifice; in Book IV he is ordered to bring the healer Machaon when Pandarus wounds Menelaus.
II.Tragedy and cult
In Euripides' Trojan Women and Hecuba he is the Greek who must tell Hecuba that the women are allotted as slaves, that Cassandra goes to Agamemnon and Hecuba to Odysseus, that Astyanax will be thrown from the walls, and that Polyxena has been sacrificed — a figure who softens what he can while carrying out the commanders' will.
Pausanias places his death at Aegium in Achaea. Herodotus records a shrine of Talthybius at Sparta and a clan of Talthybiadae who conducted Spartan embassies; Argos likewise offered him hero sacrifices.