Chryseis. The daughter of Chryses, a Trojan priest of Apollo, Chryseis was abducted by the Greek forces at Troy and given to Agamemnon as a concubine. She prayed to Apollo for release, and he set a plague upon the Greeks. The seer Calchas announced that the pestilence would be cured only if Agamemnon surrendered the captive maiden to her father. Agamemnon complied, but demanded that he receive the captive Briseis, who had been awarded to Achilles, in exhange. This demand provoked the episode known as the Wrath of Achilles, the subject of Homers Iliad. Chryseis was later called Criseyde or Cressida, and became the beloved of Troilus in some tales.

Classical Sources. Homer, Iliad 1.8-474. Hyginus, Fabulae 120—21.

See also Achilles, Wrath; Trojan War, General List.