Achaeans
This article is about the ancient people of the Achaeans. See Achaea (MUD) for the MUD created by Iron Realms Entertainment.The
Achaeans (in
Greek Αχαιοί,
Achaioi) is the collective name given to the Greek forces in
Homer's
Iliad (used 598 times). An alternative name, used interchangeably, is
Danaans ("αναοί, used 138 times) and
Argives (Αργίτες, used 29 times).
Argives is a political annotation drawn from the original capital of the Achaeans,
Argos.
Danaans is the name attributed to the tribe first dominating the
Peloponnese and the area near Argos.
Achaeans is the name of the tribe that, reinforced by the
Aeolians, first dominated Greek territories, centering itself around its capital in
Mycenae.
More specifically,
Achaea in Homer is the kingdom of
Agamemnon, chief commander of the Greek forces, the northern part of the
Peloponnese, roughly corresponding to the modern
prefectures of
Achaea,
Corinthia and
Argolis. The Homeric Achaeans would have been a part of the
Mycenaean civilization that dominated Greece from ca.
1600 BC, with a history as a tribe that may have gone back to the prehistoric
Hellenic immigration in the late
3rd millennium BC.
Some
Hittite texts mention a nation in western
Anatolia called
Ahhiyawa; in particular the
Hittite king
Mursili II in ca.
1320 BC wrote a letter to the king of the
Ahhiyawa, treating him as an equal and suggesting that
Miletus (
Millawanda) was under his control, and also referring to an earlier
"Wilusa episode" involving hostility on the part of the
Ahhiyawa. This people 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
Ilion, the name of the
acropolis of Troy). However the exact relationship of the term
Ahhiyawa to the Achaeans beyond a similarity in pronunciation is hotly debated by scholars.
*
Achaea,
Achaea (province)*
Aegean civilization*
Mycenaean Greece*
Historicity of the Iliad*
Mycenaean language*
Homer*
Troy*
Sites and Photos: Mediterranean and Classical Archaeology Images
