Achaeans

Q: Who was Achaeans?

The Achaeans are the Greeks of the Homeric poems. Homer uses “Achaeans”, “Danaans” and “Argives” for the whole Greek army at Troy.

The Achaeans are the Greeks of the Homeric poems. Homer uses “Achaeans”, “Danaans” and “Argives” for the whole Greek army at Troy. In myth the name comes from Achaeus, a son of Xuthus and grandson of Hellen, and in later times it belonged to the people of Achaea in the northern Peloponnese.

The Achaeans in Homer

The Iliad uses three names for the Greeks who fight at Troy, and uses them as equivalents. The poem begins with the anger of Achilles, which brought countless woes on the Achaeans (Homer, Iliad 1.2). Later in the same book Chryses prays that the Danaans may pay for his tears (Iliad 1.42), and Calchas speaks of Agamemnon as the man who rules over all the Argives and whom the Achaeans obey (Iliad 1.78–79). The Odyssey uses the same names for the Greeks at Troy. The poems do not explain the names further: the Achaeans are the people led to Troy by Agamemnon, Menelaus, Achilles, Odysseus and the other kings listed in the Catalogue of Ships (Iliad 2).

Achaeus and the Origin of the Name

According to Apollodorus, Hellen had three sons, Dorus, Xuthus and Aeolus. Xuthus received the Peloponnese and, by Creusa the daughter of Erechtheus, became the father of Achaeus and Ion; the Achaeans and the Ionians take their names from these two sons (Apollodorus, Library 1.7.3).

Pausanias tells the story in more detail. After Hellen’s death, Xuthus was driven out of Thessaly by his brothers, and he fled to Athens, where he married Erechtheus’ daughter. After Erechtheus died, he was asked to decide which of the dead king’s sons should rule, and when he chose the eldest, Cecrops, the other sons banished him. He settled in Aegialus, where he died. His son Achaeus then returned to Thessaly with allies from Aegialus and Athens and recovered his father’s throne, while Ion remained in Aegialus (Pausanias 7.1.2–3).

Achaeans in the Peloponnese

Pausanias says the land between Elis and Sicyon was once called Aegialus and was later named Achaea after its inhabitants (Pausanias 7.1.1). Herodotus says the Ionians lived there before the Achaeans drove them out, and that the Achaeans had twelve divisions, with cities such as Pellene, Aegira, Helice, Patrae and Olenus (Herodotus 1.145; 7.94).

Before the return of the Dorians, Lacedaemon and Argos were the only places in the Peloponnese whose people were called Achaeans. Pausanias explains that Archander and Architeles, sons of Achaeus, came from Phthiotis to Argos and married daughters of Danaus. When Achaeus’ sons came to power in Argos and Lacedaemon, the people of those towns became known as Achaeans, while the Argives also had the special name of Danai. When the Dorians expelled the Achaeans from Argos and Lacedaemon, their king Tisamenus, the son of Orestes, asked the Ionians of Aegialus to let them settle there. The Ionians refused and fought them; Tisamenus fell in the battle, but the Achaeans won, the Ionians left under a truce, and the land afterwards took the name Achaea (Pausanias 7.1.6–8).

Other Names for the Achaeans

Danaans: Homer’s third name for the Greeks at Troy (Iliad 1.42); Pausanias says the Argives had the special name of Danai (Pausanias 7.1.7).
Argives: used by Homer for the Greeks as a whole (Iliad 1.79) and for the people of Argos.
Hellenes: Apollodorus says that Hellen named the people he ruled “Hellenes” after himself (Apollodorus, Library 1.7.3).