Calchas

Common card · No. 489337

Calchas (; Ancient Greek: Κάλχας, romanized: Kálkhas) is an Argive mantis, or seer, in Greek mythology. Calchas appears in the opening scenes of the Iliad and also has a long literary history after Homer. A seer in the service of the Greek forces, Calchas is portrayed as a skilled augur, Greek oionopólos ('bird-savant'): "as an augur, Calchas had no rival in the camp." He had 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’.

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