Epitome

And when Mopsus asked Calchas concerning a pregnant sow, “ How many pigs has she in her womb, and when will she farrow?” Calchas answered, “ Eight.” But Mopsus smiled and said,“ The divination of Calchas is the reverse of exact; but I, as a son of Apollo and Manto, am extremely rich in the sharp sight which comes of exact divination, and I divine that the number of pigs in the womb is not eight, as Calchas says, but nine, and that they are all male and will be farrowed without fail tomorrow at the sixth hour.” So when these things turned out so, Calchas died of a broken heart and was buried at Notium.[*](Compare Strab. 14.1.27; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 427-430, 980. From Strabo we learn that the riddle of Calchas concerning the wild fig-tree was recorded by Hesiod, and that the riddle of Mopsus concerning the sow was recorded by Pherecydes. Our authorities vary somewhat in regard to the latter riddle. According to Pherecydes, the true answer was, “Three little pigs, and one of them a female.” According to Tzetzes, Calchas could not solve the riddle, so Mopsus solved it by saying that the sow would farrow ten little pigs, of which one would be a male. Strabo also tells us that the oracle which doomed Calchas to death whenever he should meet a diviner more skilful than himself, was mentioned by Sophocles in his play The Demand for Helen. As to that play, see The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. i. pp. 121ff. A different story of the rivalry of the two seers is told by Conon 6.)

After sacrificing, Agamemnon put to sea and touched at Tenedos. But Thetis came and persuaded Neoptolemus to wait two days and to offer sacrifice; and he waited. But the others put to sea and encountered a storm at Tenos; for Athena entreated Zeus to send a tempest against the Greeks; and many ships foundered.

And Athena threw a thunderbolt at the ship of Ajax; and when the ship went to pieces he made his way safe to a rock, and declared that he was saved in spite of the intention of Athena. But Poseidon smote the rock with his trident and split it, and Ajax fell into the sea and perished; and his body, being washed up, was buried by Thetis in Myconos.[*](As to the shipwreck and death of the Locrian Ajax, compare Hom. Od. 4.499-511; Hagias, Returns, summarized by Proclus, in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 53; Scholiast on Hom. Il. xiii.66; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica xiv.530-589; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 365, 387, 389, 402; Verg. A. 1.39-45; Hyginus, Fab. 116; Seneca, Agamemnon 532-556; Dictys Cretensis vi.1. In his great picture of the underworld, which Polygnotus painted at Delphi, the artist depicted Ajax as a castaway, the brine forming a scurf on his skin (Paus. 10.31.1). According to the Scholiast on Hom. Il. xiii.66 Ajax was cast up on the shore of Delos, where Thetis found and buried him. But as it was unlawful to be buried or even to die in Delos (Thuc. 3.104), the statement of Apollodorus that Ajax was buried in Myconus, a small island to the east of Delos, is more probable. It is said that on hearing of his death the Locrians mourned for him and wore black for a year, and every year they laded a vessel with splendid offerings, hoisted a black sail on it, and, setting the ship on fire, let it drift out to sea, there to burn down to the water's edge as a sacrifice to the drowned hero. See Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 365. Sophocles wrote a tragedy, The Locrian Ajax, on the crime and punishment of the hero. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. i. pp. 8ff. )