Achaea

“ Son of Atreus and ye other princes of the hosts of Achaea, lo, full many long-haired Achaeans are dead, whose dark blood keen Ares hath now spilt about fair-flowing Scamander, and their souls have gone down to the house of Hades; therefore were it well that thou make the battle of the Achaeans to cease at daybreak, and we will gather to hale hither on carts the corpses with oxen and mules; and we will burn them a little way from the ships that each man may bear their bones home to their children, whenso we return again to our native land. ”

“ The Arcadians, however, and the partisans of the opposite faction in Thebes were ready with an indictment against him: "Epaminondas," they said, "had merely swept and garnished Achaea for the Lacedaemonians, and then gone off." The Thebans accordingly resolved to send governors (45) into the states of Achaea; and those officers on arrival joined with the commonalty and drove out the better folk, and set up democracies throughout Achaea. ”

“ ELIS, or Eleia, an ancient district of southern Greece, bounded on the N. by Achaea, E. by Arcadia, S. by Messenia, and W. by the Ionian Sea. The local form of the name was Valis, or Valeia, and its meaning, in all probability, “the lowland.” In its physical constitution Elis is practically one with Achaea and Arcadia; its mountains are mere offshoots of the Arcadian highlands, and its principal rivers are fed by Arcadian springs. ”

“ When the Achaeans were driven from their land by the Dorians, they did not retire from Peloponnesus, but they cast out the Ionians and occupied the land called of old Aegialus, but now called Achaea from these Achaeans. The Arcadians, on the other hand, have from the beginning to to the present time continued in possession of their own country. 5.1.2 The rest of Peloponnesus belongs to immigrants. The modern Corinthians are the latest inhabitants of Peloponnesus, and from my time to the time when they received their land from the Roman Emperor is two hundred and seventeen years. ”

“ All too surely do I deem that never by night and never by day will I forget thee if I escape death and indeed make my way in safety to the Achaean land, and Aeetes set not before us some other contest worse than this. And if it pleases thee to know about my fatherland, I will tell it out; for indeed my own heart bids me do that. There is a land encircled by lofty mountains, rich in sheep and in pasture, where Prometheus, son of Iapetus, begat goodly Deucalion, who first founded cities and reared temples to the immortal gods, and first ruled Over men. ”

“ Achaia' (Ægialeia) , the name, before the Roman conquest in 146 b. c. of a strip of land between the gulf of Corinth in the north and Elis and Arcadia in the south, embracing twelve cities leagued together. The Achæan League was prominent in the struggle of the Greeks against Roman domination. ”

“ But the rest of the Trojans and the well-greaved Achaeans fought at their ease under clear air, and over them was spread the piercing brightness of the sun, and on all the earth and the mountains was no cloud seen; and they fought resting themselves at times, avoiding one another's shafts, fraught with groaning, and standing far apart. ”

“ The Achaeans verily deemed that they should never escape from out the peril, but should perish, while for the Trojans, the heart in each man's breast hoped that they should fire the ships and slay the Achaean warriors. ”

“ If they do not create the universe, they at least divide it into realms or dominions. [40] Moreover, they [101] are presented as related to one another by blood, or connected by intermarriage, as the Achaeans were. They naturally have their quarrels, their disputes, their rivalries and their jealousies, as the Achaeans had. The stamp of the Achaean caste marks the Homeric pantheon. But apart from the great Olympian gods, there are a number of minor deities who suggest the existence of a less privileged social and religious caste. ”

“ But when they came to the wide camp of the Achaeans, they drew the black ship up on the shore, high upon the sands, and set in line the long props beneath, and themselves scattered among the tents and ships. But he in his wrath sat beside his swift-faring ships, the Zeus-sprung son of Peleus, swift-footed Achilles. Never did he go forth to the place of gathering, where men win glory, nor ever to war, but wasted away his own heart, as he tarried where he was ”

“ Ye Trojans and Lycians and Dardanians that fight in close combat, stand ye fast. No long space shall the Achaeans hold me back, for all they have arrayed themselves in fashion like a wall; nay, methinks, they will give ground before my spear, if verily the highest of gods hath urged me on, the loud-thundering lord of Hera. ”

“ It is now admitted by the majority of scholars that the Aegean civilisation cannot have originated with the Achaeans; but there is still great difference of opinion as to the nature of its relations with this people. Some hold that the prehistoric civilisation of Crete was non-Achaean—and indeed non-Greek—until its fall, and yet believe that Mycenae and the other cities of the mainland were always Achaean. ”

“ The rest of the country was divided up between a number of Frankish barons, chief among whom were the dukes of Achaea (or Peloponnese) and “grand signors” of Thebes and Athens, the Venetians, who held naval stations at different points and the island of Crete, and various Italian adventurers who mainly settled in the Cyclades. The conquerors transplanted their own language, customs and religion to their new possessions, and endeavoured to institute the feudal system of land-tenure. ”

“ Therewith she sped dazzling throughout the host of the Achaeans, urging them to go forth; and in the heart of each man she roused strength to war and to battle without ceasing. And to them forthwith war became sweeter than to return in their hollow ships to their dear native land. Even as a consuming fire maketh a boundless forest to blaze on the peaks of a mountain, and from afar is the glare thereof to be seen, even so from their innumerable bronze, as they marched forth, went the dazzling gleam up through the sky unto the heavens. ”

“ The Achaeans were long the most eminent of the Grecian tribes. Possessed of nearly the whole of the Peloponnesus, except, by a singular chance, that part which afterward bore their name, they boasted the warlike fame of the opulent Menelaus and the haughty Agamemnon, the king of men. The dominant tribe of the heroic age, the Achaeans form the kindred link between the several epochs of the Pelasgic and Hellenic sway—their character indeed Hellenic, but their descent apparently Pelasgic. ”

“ In answer to him spoke swift-footed brilliant Achilles: "Most glorious son of Atreus, most covetous of all, how shall the great-hearted Achaeans give you a prize? We know nothing of a hoard of wealth in common store, but whatever we took by pillage from the cities has been apportioned, and it is not seemly to gather these things back from the army. But give back the girl to the god, and we Achaeans will recompense you three and fourfold, if ever Zeus grants us to sack the well-walled city of Troy." ”

“ And first the Trojans drave back the bright-eyed Achaeans, who left the corpse and shrank back before them; howbeit not a man did the Trojans high of heart slay with their spears, albeit they were fain, but they set them to hale the corpse. Yet for but scant space were the Achaeans to hold back therefrom, for full speedily did Aias rally them—Aias that in comeliness and in deeds of war was above all the other Danaans next to the peerless son of Peleus. ”

“ For the Achaeans may try to fly beyond the sea by night, and they must not embark scatheless and unmolested; many a man among them must take a dart with him to nurse at home, hit with spear or arrow as he is leaping on board his ship, that others may fear to bring war and weeping upon the Trojans. ”

“ See also art. ROME, History, ii. ``The Republic,'' sect. B (b) . (M. O. B. C.)
ACHAEANS ('Achaioi, Lat. Achivi) , one of the four chief divisions of the ancient greek peoples, descended, according to legend, from Achaeus, son of Xuthus, son of Hellen. This Hesiodic genealogy connects the Achaeans closely with the Ionians, but historically they approach nearer to the Aeolians. Some even hold that Aeolus is only a form of Achaeus. In the Homeric poems (1000 B.C.) the Achaeans are the master race in Greece ”

“ Then spake unto him great Hector of the flashing helm: "Aias, seeing God gave thee stature and might, aye, and wisdom, and with thy spear thou art pre-eminent above all the Achaeans, let us now cease from battle and strife for this day; hereafter shall we fight again until God judge between us, and give victory to one side or the other. Howbeit night is now upon us, and it is well to yield obedience to night's behest, that thou mayest make glad all the Achaeans beside their ships, and most of all the kinsfolk and comrades that are thine ”

“ But the Cyclic poets do not often appear to know Achaean traditions, of the Trojan affair outside of our Homer. We have shown that Palamedes was not originally an Achaean of the Achaeans, but a culture hero. The legend of Telephus, with its sympathetic magic, is wholly un-Achaean; so is [Pg 221] Iphigeneia; so are the sons of Theseus; so is the Attic Nemesis. ”

“ The ancients regarded them [the Achæans] as a branch of the Æolians, with whom they afterwards reunited into one national body, i.e., not as an originally distinct nationality or independent branch of the Greek people. Accordingly, we hear neither of an Achæan language nor of Achæan art. A manifest and decided influence of the maritime Greeks, wherever the Achæans appear, is common to the latter with the Æolians. Achæans are everywhere settled on the coast, and are always regarded as particularly near relations of the Ionians. ”

“ The Achaeans, he said, if they opposed their passage, could not complain if the Aetolians met force by force, but if they kept quiet they would not stand in the way of the project. Against the Messenians they would have no difficulty in finding a grievance, for they had long been inflicting wrong on the Aetolians by promising to ally themselves with the Achaeans and Macedonians. ”

“ But must we conclude from this that Odysseus was a tribesman? No conclusion [21] could be less cogent. It is true that the Achaeans, at the time of the Trojan war, were long enough settled in the country to have produced the nucleus of clans and tribes, for they had ruled over Greece for two hundred years. Thus the Achaean Melampus, a contemporary of Nestor and Atreus, founded a family in Argos, the development of which may thus be traced in Homer [86] :
Here we find kinship extending to second and third cousins. ”

“ The Achæans appear scattered about in localities on the coast of the Ægean so remote from one another, that it is impossible to consider all bearing this name as fragments of a people originally united in one social community; nor do they in fact anywhere appear, properly speaking, as a popular body, as the main stock of the population, but rather as eminent families, from which spring heroes; hence the use of the expression 'Sons of the Achæans' to indicate noble descent. ”

“ The condition of Achaia during this period of the Roman dominion, from B.C. 172 to 152, was peculiar and is very obscure. The government was in a very sad condition; Callicrates and Andronidas tyrannised over the Achæans, although they had no followers, and although the people were so enraged against the former that he was publicly hissed, and everybody shunned him. “He is a man who stands forth branded in every respect with everlasting infamy; he was never invited by a Greek either to dinner or to a wedding;” ”

“ The conquered Achæans were forced either to emigrate to Asia and Italy, or to content themselves with the northern coast of their peninsula, from which they expelled its Ionian inhabitants, and gave it their own name, Achaia. The Ionians, after resting a few years in Attica, whose people were their kinsmen, sought more space in the Cyclades, in Chios and Samos, or on the neighboring coasts of Asia Minor. In the fertile region between the Hermus and Mæander, and on the islands, twelve Ionian cities [38] sprang up, and became rich and flourishing states. ”

“ The ephors and the assembly concluded that there was no alternative but to assist the Achaeans in their campaign against the Acarnanians. Accordingly they sent out Agesilaus with two divisions and the proper complement of allies. The Achaeans none the less marched out in full force themselves. No sooner had Agesilaus crossed the gulf than there was a general flight of the population from the country districts into the towns, whilst the flocks and herds were driven into remote districts that they might not be captured by the troops. ”

“ It was probably accelerated by the number of Achæan emigrants who sought refuge in Achaia from other parts of the Peloponnesus, and who soon crowded the country, till it was relieved by its Italian colonies. What Polybius and Strabo term a democracy may however have been a polity, or a very liberal and well-tempered form of oligarchy. Of its details we know nothing; nor are we informed in what relation the twelve principal Achaian towns—a division adopted from the Ionians—stood to the hamlets, of which each had seven or eight in its territory, like those of Tegea and Mantinea. ”