The Achaeans, Myth and Historical Reality

In Homer, the term Achaeans or Akhaians (romanized: Akhaioí, meaning "the Achaeans" or "of Achaea") broadly refers to all Greeks. However, the Homeric epics portray a distorted and imaginative depiction of the Achaean world. This portrayal is less a true memory of their civilization and more an amalgamation of elements from the Mycenaean past and features of the poets' contemporary society. In the Iliad, the Achaeans are depicted as the Greek peoples who took part in the Trojan War. Homer uses Achaeans and Danaans interchangeably, while Argives appears to refer more specifically to natives of the Peloponnesus or mainland Greece. The term Hellenes is used only for the inhabitants of northern Greece.

Map of Classical Achaea and a scene from the Trojan War: Acheans fighting the Amazons; centre: Achilles and the dying Penthesilea. Panel of a marble sarcophagus, Roman artwork, 3rd century CE – Pio-Clementino Museum, Octagon Hall, Hermes Cabinet.

In historical times, the name Achaeans was applied to the inhabitants of Phthiotic Achaea (southern Thessaly) and Aegialean Achaea (northern Peloponnesus), who were of Dorian descent. The Achaeans were one of the four main tribes into which Herodotus divided the Greeks, alongside the Aeolians, Ionians, and Dorians.
Modern reconstructions, grounded in ancient historical traditions, suggest that the Achaeans were the first Hellenic population to invade Greece in the second millennium BCE. They succeeded in definitively dominating the pre-Hellenic peoples, often identified as the Pelasgians. The Achaeans were also called Argives, deriving from the city of Argos, and Danaans, meaning "sons of Danaus" and thus "Westerners," in contrast to the "Eastern" Trojans. These Indo-European peoples entered Greece via the Balkans, occupying the Peloponnesus around 1500 BCE, coinciding with the decline of the Minoan civilization. The Achaeans may have been the ultimate cause of the Minoan downfall. However, they absorbed significant influences from this sophisticated culture, leading to the development of the flourishing Mycenaean civilization. The Achaeans expanded throughout the Peloponnesus, the islands around Greece, and other regions of the country. Therefore, equating the Achaeans with the Mycenaeans would be inaccurate.

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

Their significance is confirmed by references to the Achaeans in Hittite and Egyptian records (1400–1200 BCE), where they are called Ahhijawa and Ekwesh, respectively.

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

Around 1450 BCE, the Achaeans established dominance over Minoan Crete through military expeditions and piracy. They also expanded toward the southern Cyclades, Rhodes, Cyprus, and the coasts of Asia Minor. In the 13th century BCE, they ventured toward the Black Sea, launching a military expedition against Troy.
The decline of Mycenaean civilization appears to have begun with the Trojan War around 1200 BCE, with the subsequent Dorian invasion, approximately a century later, delivering the final blow.

Mythology

According to the foundation myth formalized by Hesiod, the name Achaeans derives from their mythical ancestor Achaeus, said to be one of the sons of Xuthus and brother of Ion, the founder of the Ionian tribe. Xuthus was the son of Hellen, the legendary patriarch of the Greek (Hellenic) nation.

[3] Hellen had Dorus, Xuthus, and Aeolus by a nymph Orseis. Those who were called Greeks he named Hellenes after himself, and divided the country among his sons. Xuthus received Peloponnese and begat Achaeus and Ion by Creusa, daughter of Erechtheus, and from Achaeus and Ion the Achaeans and Ionians derive their names. Dorus received the country over against Peloponnese and called the settlers Dorians after himself. Aeolus reigned over the regions about Thessaly and named the inhabitants Aeolians. He married Enarete, daughter of Deimachus, and begat seven sons, Cretheus, Sisyphus, Athamas, Salmoneus, Deion, Magnes, Perieres, and five daughters, Canace, Alcyone, Pisidice, Calyce, Perimede.
Perimede had Hippodamas and Orestes by Achelous; and Pisidice had Antiphus and Actor by Myrmidon. - Apollodorus, Library, 1.7.3

Both Herodotus and Pausanias recount the legend that the Achaeans of the Classical period originally lived in Argolis and Laconia. Herodotus states that they were driven out of these lands by the Dorians during the legendary Dorian invasion of the Peloponnesus.

Seven nations inhabit the Peloponnese. Two of these are aboriginal and are now settled in the land where they lived in the old days, the Arcadians and Cynurians. One nation, the Achaean, has never left the Peloponnese, but it has left its own country and inhabits another nation's land. The four remaining nations of the seven are immigrants, the Dorians and Aetolians and Dryopians and Lemnians. The Dorians have many famous cities, the Aetolians only Elis, the Dryopians Hermione and Asine near Laconian Cardamyle, the Lemnians all the Paroreatae. The Cynurians are aboriginal and seem to be the only Ionians, but they have been Dorianized by time and by Argive rule. They are the Orneatae and the perioikoi. All the remaining cities of these seven nations, except those I enumerated, stayed neutral. If I may speak freely, by staying neutral they medized.- Herodotus, The Histories, 8.73

As a result, the Achaeans moved to the region known as Aegialus, displacing the Aegialians, who became known as the Ionians.

The Ionians furnished a hundred ships; their equipment was like the Greek. These Ionians, as long as they were in the Peloponnese, dwelt in what is now called Achaia, and before Danaus and Xuthus came to the Peloponnese, as the Greeks say, they were called Aegialian Pelasgians. They were named Ionians after Ion the son of Xuthus. - Herodotus, The Histories, 7.94

The Ionians sought temporary refuge in Athens, and Aegialus was renamed Achaea.

Among these Ionians, the Milesians were safe from the danger (for they had made a treaty), and the islanders among them had nothing to fear: for the Phoenicians were not yet subjects of the Persians, nor were the Persians themselves mariners. [2] But those of Asia were cut off from the rest of the Ionians only in the way that I shall show. The whole Hellenic stock was then small, and the last of all its branches and the least regarded was the Ionian; for it had no considerable city except Athens. [3] Now the Athenians and the rest would not be called Ionians, but spurned the name; even now the greater number of them seem to me to be ashamed of it; but the twelve cities aforesaid gloried in this name, and founded a holy place for themselves which they called the Panionion, and agreed among themselves to allow no other Ionians to use it (nor in fact did any except the men of Smyrna ask to be admitted); just as the Dorians of what is now the country of the “Five Cities” — formerly the country of the “Six Cities” — forbid admitting any of the neighboring Dorians to the Triopian temple, and even barred from using it those of their own group who had broken the temple law. [2] For long ago, in the games in honor of Triopian Apollo, they offered certain bronze tripods to the victors; and those who won these were not to carry them away from the temple but dedicate them there to the god. [3] Now when a man of Halicarnassus called Agasicles won, he disregarded this law, and, carrying the tripod away, nailed it to the wall of his own house. For this offense the five cities—Lindus, Ialysus, Camirus, Cos, and Cnidus—forbade the sixth city—Halicarnassus—to share in the use of the temple. Such was the penalty imposed on the Halicarnassians.
As for the Ionians, the reason why they made twelve cities and would admit no more was in my judgment this: there were twelve divisions of them when they dwelt in the Peloponnese, just as there are twelve divisions of the Achaeans who drove the Ionians out—Pellene nearest to Sicyon; then Aegira and Aegae, where is the never-failing river Crathis, from which the river in Italy took its name; Bura and Helice, where the Ionians fled when they were worsted in battle by the Achaeans; Aegion; Rhype; Patrae; Phareae; and Olenus, where is the great river Pirus; Dyme and Tritaeae, the only inland city of all these—these were the twelve divisions of the Ionians, as they are now of the Achaeans.
For this reason, and for no other, the Ionians too made twelve cities; for it would be foolishness to say that these are more truly Ionian or better born than the other Ionians; since not the least part of them are Abantes from Euboea, who are not Ionians even in name, and there are mingled with them Minyans of Orchomenus, Cadmeans, Dryopians, Phocian renegades from their nation, Molossians, Pelasgian Arcadians, Dorians of Epidaurus, and many other tribes; [2] and as for those who came from the very town-hall of Athens and think they are the best born of the Ionians, these did not bring wives with them to their settlements, but married Carian women whose parents they had put to death. [3] For this slaughter, these women made a custom and bound themselves by oath (and enjoined it on their daughters) that no one would sit at table with her husband or call him by his name, because the men had married them after slaying their fathers and husbands and sons. This happened at Miletus.
And as kings, some of them chose Lycian descendants of Glaucus son of Hippolochus, and some Caucones of Pylus, descendants of Codrus son of Melanthus, and some both. Yet since they set more store by the name than the rest of the Ionians, let it be granted that those of pure birth are Ionians; [2] and all are Ionians who are of Athenian descent and keep the feast Apaturia. All do keep it, except the men of Ephesus and Colophon; these are the only Ionians who do not keep it, and these because, they say, of a certain pretext of murder. - Herodotus, The Histories, 1.143-147

Pausanias explains that the name Achaeans initially referred to the Greeks who lived in Argolis and Laconia because they were descendants of the mythical sons of Achaeus, Archander and Architeles. Pausanias further notes that Achaeus originally lived in Attica, where his father had settled after being exiled from Thessaly. Achaeus later returned to Thessaly to reclaim his land, and it was from there that Archander and Architeles migrated to the Peloponnesus. This connection explains why an ancient part of Thessaly was also known as Phthiotic Achaea.

[1] The land between Elis and Sicyonia, reaching down to the eastern sea, is now called Achaia after the inhabitants, but of old was called Aegialus and those who lived in it Aegialians. According to the Sicyonians the name is derived from Aegialeus, who was king in what is now Sicyonia; others say that it is from the land, the greater part of which is coast (aigialos).
[2] Later on, after the death of Hellen, Xuthus was expelled from Thessaly by the rest of the sons of Hellen, who charged him with having appropriated some of the ancestral property. But he fled to Athens, where he was deemed worthy to wed the daughter of Erechtheus, by whom he had sons, Achaeus and Ion. On the death of Erechtheus Xuthus was appointed judge to decide which of his sons should succeed him. He decided that Cecrops, the eldest of them, should be king, and was accordingly banished from the land by the rest of the sons of Erechtheus.
[3] He reached Aegialus, made his home there, and there died. Of his sons, Achaeus with the assistance of allies from Aegialus and Athens returned to Thessaly and recovered the throne of his fathers: Ion, while gathering an army against the Aegialians and Selinus their king, received a message from Selinus, who offered to give him in marriage Helice, his only child, as well as to adopt him as his son and successor.
[4] It so happened that the proposal found favour with Ion, and on the death of Selinus he became king of the Aegialians. He called the city he founded in Aegialus Helice after his wife, and called the inhabitants Ionians after himself. This, however, was not a change of name, but an addition to it, for the folk were named Aegialian Ionians. The original name clung to the land even longer than to the people; for at any rate in the list of the allies of Agamemnon, Homer is content to mention the ancient name of the land:“Throughout all Aegialus and about wide Helice.
[5] At that time in the reign of Ion the Eleusinians made war on the Athenians, and these having invited Ion to be their leader in the war, he met his death in Attica, his tomb being in the deme of Potamus. The descendants of Ion became rulers of the Ionians, until they themselves as well as the people were expelled by the Achaeans. The Achaeans at that time had themselves been expelled from Lacedaemon and Argos by the Dorians.
[6] The history of the Ionians in relation to the Achaeans I will give as soon as I have explained the reason why the inhabitants of Lacedaemon and Argos were the only Peloponnesians to be called Achaeans before the return of the Dorians. Archander and Architeles, sons of Achaeus, came from Phthiotis to Argos, and after their arrival became sons-in-law of Danaus, Architeles marrying Automate and Archander Scaea. A very clear proof that they settled in Argos is the fact that Archander named his son Metanastes (settler).
[7] When the sons of Achaeus came to power in Argos and Lacedaemon, the inhabitants of these towns came to be called Achaeans. The name Achaeans was common to them; the Argives had the special name of Danai. On the occasion referred to, being expelled by the Dorians from Argos and Lacedaemon, the Achaeans themselves and their king Tisamenus, the son of Orestes, sent heralds to the Ionians, offering to settle among them without warfare. But the kings of the Ionians were afraid that, if the Achaeans united with them, Tisamenus would be chosen king of the combined people because of his manliness and noble lineage.
[8] The Ionians rejected the proposal of the Achaeans and came out to fight them; in the battle Tisamenus was killed, the Ionians were overcome by the Achaeans, fled to Helice, where they were besieged, and afterwards were allowed to depart under a truce. The body of Tisamenus was buried in Helice by the Achaeans, but afterwards at the command of the Delphic oracle the Lacedaemonians carried his bones to Sparta, and in my own day his grave still existed in the place where the Lacedaemonians take the dinner called Pheiditia.
[9] The Ionians went to Attica, and they were allowed to settle there by the Athenians and their king Melanthus, the son of Andropompus, I suppose for the sake of Ion and his achievements when he was commander-in-chief of the Athenians. Another account is that the Athenians suspected that the Dorians would not keep their hands off them, and received the Ionians to strengthen themselves rather than for any good-will they felt towards the Ionians. Pausanias, Description of Greece , 7.1

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