Achaeans (Homer)

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The Achaeans or Akhaians (

romanized: Akhaioí, "the Achaeans" or "of Achaea") is one of the names in Homer which is used to refer to the Greeks
collectively.

The term "Achaean" is believed to be related to the

Mycenaean civilization
or some part of it.

In the historical period, the term fell into disuse as a general term for Greek people, and was generally reserved for inhabitants of the region of Achaea, a region in the north-central part of the Peloponnese. The city-states of this region later formed a confederation known as the Achaean League, which was influential during the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC.

Etymology

According to

Pre-Greek *Akaywa-.[3]

Homeric versus later use

In Homer, the term Achaeans is one of the primary terms used to refer to the Greeks as a whole. It is used 598 times in the Iliad, often accompanied by the epithet "long-haired". Other common names used in Homer are Danaans (/ˈdæn.ənz/; Δαναοί Danaoi; used 138 times in the Iliad) and Argives (/ˈɑːrɡvz/; Ἀργεῖοι Argeioi; used 182 times in the Iliad) while Panhellenes (Πανέλληνες Panhellenes, "All of the Greeks") and Hellenes (/ˈhɛlnz/;[4] Ἕλληνες Hellenes) both appear only once;[5] All of the aforementioned terms were used synonymously to denote a common Greek identity.[6][7] In some English translations of the Iliad, the Achaeans are simply called the Greeks throughout.

Later, by the Archaic and Classical periods, the term "Achaeans" referred to inhabitants of the much smaller region of Achaea. Herodotus identified the Achaeans of the northern Peloponnese as descendants of the earlier, Homeric Achaeans. According to Pausanias, writing in the 2nd century AD, the term "Achaean" was originally given to those Greeks inhabiting the Argolis and Laconia.[8]

Pausanias and Herodotus both recount the legend that the Achaeans were forced from their homelands by the Dorians, during the legendary Dorian invasion of the Peloponnese. They then moved into the region later called Achaea.

A scholarly consensus has not yet been reached on the origin of the historic Achaeans relative to the Homeric Achaeans and is still hotly debated. Former emphasis on presumed race, such as John A. Scott's article about the blond locks of the Achaeans as compared to the dark locks of "Mediterranean" Poseidon,[9] on the basis of hints in Homer, has been rejected by some. The contrasting belief that "Achaeans", as understood through Homer, is "a name without a country", an ethnos created in the Epic tradition,[10] has modern supporters among those who conclude that "Achaeans" were redefined in the 5th century BC, as contemporary speakers of Aeolic Greek.

Asia Minor to Greece, probably settling first in lower Thessaly" probably prior to 2000 BC.[13]

Hittite documents

Map showing the Hittite Empire, Ahhiyawa (Achaeans) and Wilusa (Troy) in c. 1300 BC.

Some Hittite texts mention a nation to the west called Ahhiyawa (

Hattusili III) of the empire period (14th–13th century BC) to the king of Ahhiyawa, treating him as an equal and implying Miletus (Millawanda) was under his control.[16] It also refers to an earlier "Wilusa episode" involving hostility on the part of Ahhiyawa. Ahhiya(wa) has been identified with the Achaeans of the Trojan War and the city of Wilusa with the legendary city of Troy (note the similarity with early Greek Ϝίλιον Wilion, later Ἴλιον Ilion, the name of the acropolis
of Troy).

Oriental Institute.[18] More recent research based on new readings and interpretations of the Hittite texts, as well as of the material evidence for Mycenaean contacts with the Anatolian mainland, came to the conclusion that Ahhiyawa referred to the Mycenaean world, or at least to a part of it.[19]

Scholarship up to 2011 was reviewed by Gary M. Beckman et al. In this review, the increasing acceptance of the Ahhiyawa-Mycenaeans hypothesis was noted. As to the exact location of Ahhiyawa:[20]

It now seems most reasonable to identify Ahhiyawa primarily with the Greek mainland, although in some contexts the term "Ahhiyawa" may have had broader connotations, perhaps covering all regions that were settled by Mycenaeans or came under Mycenaean control.

In fact, the authors state that "there is now little doubt that Ahhiyawa was a reference by the Hittites to some or all of the Bronze Age Mycenaean world", and that Forrer was "largely correct after all".[20]

Egyptian sources

Map of Mycenaean cultural areas, 1400–1100 BC (unearthed sites in red dots).

It has been proposed that Ekwesh of the Egyptian records may relate to Achaea (compared to Hittite Ahhiyawa), whereas

Kythera, Messenia and the Thebaid (region of Thebes).[21]

During the 5th year of Pharaoh

Ekwesh or Eqwesh, whom some have seen as Achaeans, although Egyptian texts specifically mention these Ekwesh to be circumcised. Homer mentions an Achaean attack upon the delta, and Menelaus speaks of the same in Book IV of the Odyssey to Telemachus when he recounts his own return home from the Trojan War. Some ancient Greek authors also say that Helen had spent the time of the Trojan War in Egypt, and not at Troy, and that after Troy the Greeks went there to recover her.[22]

Greek mythology

In

Dorus of the Dorians
.

Cadmus from Phoenicia, Danaus from Egypt, and Pelops from Anatolia each gained a foothold in mainland Greece and were assimilated and Hellenized. Hellen, Graikos, Magnes, and Macedon were sons of Deucalion and Pyrrha, the only people who survived the Great Flood;[23] the ethne were said to have originally been named Graikoi after the elder son but later renamed Hellenes after Hellen who was proved to be the strongest.[24] Sons of Hellen and the nymph Orseis were Dorus, Xuthos, and Aeolus.[25] Sons of Xuthos and Kreousa, daughter of Erechthea, were Ion and Achaeus.[25]

According to

Hyginus, 22 Achaeans killed 362 Trojans during their ten years at Troy.[26][27]

Genealogy of the Argives

Argive genealogy in Greek mythology
InachusMelia
ZeusIoPhoroneus
EpaphusMemphis
LibyaPoseidon
BelusAchiroëAgenorTelephassa
DanausElephantisAegyptusCadmusCilixEuropaPhoenix
MantineusHypermnestraLynceusHarmoniaZeus
Polydorus
Agave
SarpedonRhadamanthus
Autonoë
EurydiceAcrisiusInoMinos
ZeusDanaëSemeleZeus
PerseusDionysus
Colour key:

  Male
  Female
  Deity

See also

References

Citations

  1. ^ Margalit Finkelberg, "From Ahhiyawa to Ἀχαιοί", Glotta 66 (1988): 127–134.
  2. ^ According to Finkelberg, this derivation does not necessitate an ultimate Greek and Indo-european origin of the word: "Obviously, this deduction cannot supply conclusive proof that Ahhiyawa presents a Greek word, the more so as neither the etymology of this word nor its cognates are known to us".
  3. R. S. P. Beekes
    , Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Brill, 2009, p. 181.
  4. ^ "Hellene" entry in Collins English Dictionary.
  5. ^ See Iliad, II.2.530 for "Panhellenes" and Iliad II.2.653 for "Hellenes".
  6. ^ Cartledge 2011, Chapter 4: Argos, p. 23: "The Late Bronze Age in Greece is also called conventionally 'Mycenaean', as we saw in the last chapter. But it might in principle have been called 'Argive', 'Achaean', or 'Danaan', since the three names that Homer does apply to Greeks collectively were 'Argives', 'Achaeans', and 'Danaans'."
  7. ^ Nagy 2014, Texts and Commentaries – Introduction #2: "Panhellenism is the least common denominator of ancient Greek civilization...The impulse of Panhellenism is already at work in Homeric and Hesiodic poetry. In the Iliad, the names "Achaeans" and "Danaans" and "Argives" are used synonymously in the sense of Panhellenes = "all Hellenes" = "all Greeks.""
  8. ^ Pausanias. Description of Greece, VII.1.
  9. ^ Scott 1925, pp. 366–367.
  10. ^ As William K. Prentice expressed this long-standing skepticism of a genuine Achaean ethnicity in the distant past, at the outset of his article "The Achaeans" (see Prentice 1929, p. 206).
  11. ^ Beloch 1893, Volume I, pp. 88 (Note #1) and 92.
  12. ^ Meyer 1884–1902, Volume II, Part 1: Die Zeit der ägyptischen Großmacht – V. Das griechische Festland und die mykenische Kultur.
  13. ^ Prentice 1929, pp. 206–218.
  14. ^ Huxley 1960, p. 22; Güterbock 1983, pp. 133–138; Mellink 1983, pp. 138–141.
  15. ^ Translation of the Sins of Madduwatta Archived February 28, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  16. ^ Translation of the Tawagalawa Letter Archived 2013-10-21 at the Wayback Machine
  17. ^ a b Güterbock 1984, p. 114.
  18. ^ Güterbock 1984, pp. 114–122.
  19. ^ Windle 2004, pp. 121–122; Bryce 1999, p. 60.
  20. ^ a b The Ahhiyawa Texts. Editors: Gary M. Beckman, Trevor Bryce, Eric H. Cline; Society of Biblical Literature, 2011; ISBN 158983268X
  21. ^ a b c Kelder 2010, pp. 125–126.
  22. ^ For example, in Euripides, Stesichorus, and Herodotus; HELEN wsu.edu
  23. ^ Hesiod. Catalogue of Women, Fragments.
  24. ^ Aristotle. Meteorologica, I.14.
  25. ^ a b Pseudo-Apollodorus. Bibliotheca, I.7.3.
  26. Fabulae, 114
    .
  27. ^ In particular: Achilles 72, Antilochus 2, Protesilaus 4, Peneleos 2, Eurypylus 1, Ajax 14, Thoas 2, Leitus 20, Thrasymedes 2, Agamemnon 16, Diomedes 18, Menelaus 8, Philoctetes 3, Meriones 7, Odysseus 12, Idomeneus 13, Leonteus 5, Ajax 28, Patroclus 54, Polypoetes 1, Teucer 30, Neoptolemus 6; a total of 362 Trojans.

Sources

External links