Sacrifices at Aulis
With these last two warriors added to the Greek army, the entire forces assembled at Aulis, Boeotia, with their thousand ships. The Greek leaders accepted Agamemnon as the chief-in-command of the army.
Agamemnon sacrificed to all the gods, except Artemis. When they sacrificed to Apollo, Calchas informed the leaders that the war was to last for ten years, because a snake swallowed eight sparrow chicks from a nest, but with the ninth chick, the snake turned into stone.
The fleet set out for Troy. However, they landed instead in Mysia, where they attacked Teuthrania, thinking it was Troy.
Telephus (Τήλεφος) the son of Heracles and Auge, the daughter of Aleus of Tegea, was the king of Teuthrania. Telephus had married Laodice or Astyoche, the daughter of Priam and Hecuba.
Telephus defended his kingdom, killing many Greeks, including the young King Thersander of Thebes, the son of Polyneices. Achilles wounded Telephus in the thigh. When the Greeks realised that they had not attack Troy, they set out to sea for Troy. However, a violent storm drove the Greek fleet back to Greece, where they regathered their forces at Aulis.
Meanwhile, Telephus' wound would not heal properly. When Telephus consulted the oracle of Apollo, he found out that his wound would only heal from the spear that had wounded him.
Telephus disguised himself as a beggar, abducted the infant Orestes, the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. Telephus threatened to kill Agamemnon's son unless Achilles healed him. However, Achilles was not a healer and knew not how to proceed.
First, Agamemnon had managed to come to an agreement with Telephus. Telephus would guide the fleet to Troy, as well as not to aid his father-in-law, King Priam of Troy, in the coming war. Then the seer Calchas once again advised them that Achilles should scrap the rust from the wound with the spearhead. Telephus's wound was immediately healed.
Yet, the Greek fleet could not leave the harbour, because of unfavourable winds that blew for months. Calchas discovered that the storm that drove them back to Greece, and the winds that was now keeping them in Aulis, was because of the huntress goddess, Artemis.
When Agamemnon had first sacrificed to the gods, he had failed to honour Artemis, the sister of Apollo, so the goddess punished the entire fleet by sending strong, unfavorable winds. According to a different version, Agamemnon had killed a stag in sacred grove, and then boasted that he was a better hunter than the goddess herself.
The seer Calchas learned that Agamemnon had offended the goddess, and Artemis would not be satisfied unless he had sacrificed his own daughter, Iphigeneia (Iphigenia).
At first, Agamemnon refused to sacrifice his daughter, but discovered the price of leadership. The other Greek leaders forced Agamemnon into submission; otherwise he would have to step down from commander-in-chief's post.
Odysseus devised a plan to lure Iphigeneia to her death. They sent a false message from Agamemnon that he would marry Iphigeneia to Achilles.
When Iphigeneia arrived at Aulis with her mother, Clytemnestra, they discovered the deception. Achilles was offended that Agamemnon had used his name as a bait to lure Clytemnestra and Iphigeneia to Aulis. Achilles would have defended innocent maiden against the other Greeks, but Iphigeneia bravely accepted her fate, and agreed to be sacrifice.
At the sacrificial altar, before the priest could sacrifice Iphigeneia, a thick fog covered the altar, and when the fog cleared, the maiden was gone. The goddess had replaced Iphigeneia with a fawn.
Artemis had spirited Iphigeneia away, according to the Cyrpia (Epic Cycle) and Euripides' Iphigeneia at Aulis, to the land of Tauris, where she would stay as the high priestess of Artemis, until she was rescued by her brother, Orestes, years later after the war. (See Iphigeneia among the Taurians.)
According to the Catalogues of Women and in Pausanias' Geographia, Artemis had transformed Iphigeneia into the goddess Hecate.
According to some versions, they say that Iphigeneia was killed in the sacrifice. Whichever version you have read, the unfavourable winds died, and the Greek fleet sailed once again for Troy.
Telephus guided the Greek fleet as they sailed towards Troy. One of their stops was on the island of Lemnos.
While they were still on the island, Philoctetes went hunting, but was bitten by a poisonous water snake. The wound would not heal and began to fester. The unpleasant odour from the snakebite also caused the Greeks to abandon Philoctetes on the island. According to Sophocles' Philoctetes, it was Odysseus and Agamemnon who ordered the others to abandon Philoctetes.
Philoctetes would remain on the island until the last year of the war. The Greeks leaders would find out that Troy couldn't fall without the bow and arrows of Heracles, which Philoctetes possessed. See Fall of Troy about Philoctetes.
The fleet stopped at another island, called Tenedos, where the Greeks fought Tenes, the king of Tenedos. Tenes was the son of Cycnus, who was the king of Colonae, near Troy. However, others say Tenes was the son of Apollo.
As I had mentioned earlier in the Conscriptions, Thetis had warned her son not to kill the son of Apollo, or else he would later died at the god's hands.
Achilles either forgotten or ignored his mother's warning. In the heat of the fighting, however, Achilles killed Tenes. See Death of Achilles.