Achaia

“ 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. ”

“ Achaia was the Roman name of the little land of Greece, whose fame has filled all history. In the later period of its independence, its ruling state had been Achaia, which gave its name to the entire province when annexed to the Roman empire. In the apostolic age, Corinth was its metropolis and political capital, though Athens still retained its fame as a centre of art and literature.
The apostle Paul and his companions sailed across the Ægean Sea from Troas, in a northwesterly direction, passing the storied isles of Tenedos and Imbros ”

“ Rising above their ranks, thus spake the swift-footed Achilleus!—
"Sure, it were better, Atrides, that we, the remains of the people,
Wandering back as we came, should fly, if we can, from destruction! ⁠60
War and pest combined are thinning the ranks of Achaia.
Let us at least consult some prophet or skilful diviner,
E'en an expounder of dreams— (for Zeus sends dreams to the dreamer,) —
He may reveal what cause thus enrages Phœbus Apollo. ”

“ While the youths of Achaia made no scruple of allowing their oil-anointed torsos to shine under the sun in the stadium, and while the Spartan virgins danced ungarmented before the altar of Diana, those of Persepolis, Ebactana, and Bactria, attaching more importance to chastity of the body than to chastity of mind, considered those liberties allowed to the pleasure of the eyes by Greek manner as impure and highly reprehensible, and held no woman virtuous who permitted men to obtain a glimpse of more than the tip of her foot in walking, as it slightly deranged the discreet folds of a long tunic. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Principality of Achaia.♦ These are the duchy of Athens in central Greece—in Hellas, according to the Byzantine nomenclature—and the principality of Achaia or Môraia in Peloponnêsos. ♦Use of the name Môraia.♦ This last name, of uncertain origin, [35] has come, in its Italian shape, to be a modern name of the peninsula itself. But the name of Môraia seems strictly to belong to the domain lands of the principality, and never to go beyond the bounds of the principality, which at no time took in the whole of Peloponnêsos. ”

“ We find 'Hellas' and 'Achaia' following similar lines of development with Argos. They denote first Achilles's own district in Phthia, the home of those tribes which called their settlement in the Peloponnese 'Achaia,' and that in Italy 'Great Hellas.' But through most of the Iliad 'Achaioi' means the Greeks in general, while 'Hellas' is still the special district. In the Odyssey we find 'Hellas' in the later universal sense, and in B we meet the idea 'Panhellênes.' This is part of the expansion of the poet's geographical range: at first all the actors had really been 'Achaioi ' or 'Argeioi' ”

“ So important was the position of the Marquisate as one of the twelve peerages of Achaia.
The Marchioness Isabella died without children; and, accordingly, in 1286, a disputed succession arose between her husband, a Frank settled in the East, and the nearest male representative of the Pallavicini family, her cousin Tommaso, grandson of the first Marquess’s brother, Rubino. The dispute was referred to Guillaume de la Roche, Duke of Athens, in his capacity of bailie of Achaia, before the feudal court of which a question relating to Boudonitza would legally come. ”

“ Of the eleven Achæan cities that formed the celebrated Achæan league, Pal'træ (now Patras') alone survives. Si'çy-on, on the eastern border of Achaia, was at times an independent state.
12. South of Achaia was the central region of Arcadia, surrounded by a ring of mountains, and completely encompassed by the other states of the Peloponnesus. Next to Laconia it was the largest of the ancient divisions of Greece, and the most picturesque and beautiful portion (not unlike Switzerland in its mountain character) , and without either seaports or navigable rivers. ”

“ J. P. Mahaffy, The Story of Alexander's Empire, chapter 10. See, also, HELLENIC GENIUS AND INFLUENCE. GREECE: B. C. 280-146. The Achaian League. Its rise and fall. Destruction of Sparta. Supremacy of Rome. The Achaian League, which bore a leading part in the affairs of Greece during the last half of the third and first half of the second century before Christ, was in some sense the revival of a more ancient confederacy among the cities of Achaia in Peloponnesus. The older League, however, was confined to twelve cities of Achaia and had little weight, apparently, in general Hellenic politics. ”

“ Though confederated with Achaia, the Peloponnesian cities retained each of them peculiar privileges, and a species of independent sovereignty. No sooner was peace concluded with Ætolia, than Marcus Fulvius Nobilior, to whom the conduct of the Ætolian War had been committed on the expiration of the consulship of Acilius, took up his residence in the island of Cephallenia, that he might be ready, upon the first appearance of any dispute in Achaia, to pass over into Peloponnesus, and improve every dissension, for the aggrandisement of the Roman Republic. ”

“ 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;” ”

“ But the highest political life of Greece, above all of old European Greece, was now to be found in the federal states, in Polybios’ own Achaia, in gallant and faithful Akarnania, in the adopted Greek land of Epeiros, nay too in after days beyond the sea, among worthy imitators of Hellenic models, in that land of Lykia whose people, in the latest [Pg 37] day as in the earliest, stand forth as the worthiest folk of Asia, alongside of the men of Achaia, worthiest folk of Europe. Achaia, Rhodes, Pergamon ”

“ But Muntaner expressly says that the nobles of Achaia usually took their wives from France. Meanwhile new men had taken possession of some of the old baronies—Flemings, Neapolitans, and even Florentines, one of whom, Nicholas Acciajuoli, whose splendid tomb is to be seen in the Certosa near Florence, laid on the rocks of Akrocorinth the foundations of a power which, a generation later, made the bankers of Tuscany dukes of Athens. ”

“ The province of Achaia is a familiar illustration of this point. A very few years before St Paul's visit to Corinth, and some years later, Achaia was governed by a proprætor. Just at this time, however, it was in the hands of the Senate, and its ruler therefore was a proconsul as represented by St Luke.
Cyprus is a less familiar, but not less instructive, example of the same accuracy. Older critics, even when writing on the apologetic side, had charged St Luke with an incorrect use of terms ”

“ If Achaia is near you, there is Corinth; are you not far from Macedonia, there is Philippi, and there Thessalonica; can you come into Asia, there is Ephesus; but are you near Italy, there is Rome. Let us see, what she (namely the church there) has said, what she has taught, and in what she has agreed with the African churches. She recognizes one God, the Creator of all things, and Christ Jesus from the virgin Mary, the Son of God the Creator, and the resurrection of the flesh ”

“ The new self-governing combination of cities which arose in Achaia after the disintegration of Alexander's empire might indeed conceivably have reached a high civilisation in time; but the external conditions, as summed up in the existence of Rome, were now overwhelmingly unfavourable. The opportunity for successful federalism was past. As it was, the Achaian and Ætolian Leagues were but politic unions as much for aggression as for defence, even as the Spartan reformers, Agis and Cleomenes, could never rise above the ideal of Spartan self-assertion and domination. ”

“ The population and wealth of Corinth were disposed of—the former by murder, and the latter by robbery. Greece was formed into a Roman province under the title of Achaia, and Mummius, glorying in, rather [224] than being ashamed of, his share of the work, took the surname of Achaicus. We may instance as a redeeming feature of the period, the erection at Rome of a clock, which was in some degree at variance with the time; for the useful arts were neglected amid the pursuits of war and rapine. ”

“ But it is not seemly for one that is their captain to bring the sons of the Achaians to ill. Soft fools, base things of shame, ye women of Achaia and men no more, let us depart home with our ships, and leave this fellow here in Troy-land to gorge him with meeds of honour, that he may see whether our aid avail him aught or no; even he that hath now done dishonour to Achilles, a far better man than he; for he hath taken away his meed of honour and keepeth it by his own violent deed. Of a very surety is there no wrath at all in Achilles’ mind, but he is slack ”

“ But the very prosperity of Achaia may have led the Romans to break it up. Its extent in those times cannot be stated with exactness: it very likely took in the whole of Peloponnesus and Megara, and although Attica, Phocis, and Locris did not belong to it, several places yet farther off, by having isopolity, were in the league; for instance, Heraclea, by mount Oeta, Pleuron, in Ætolia. The Roman commissioners, C. Aurelius Orestes and his colleagues, appeared at Corinth, and announced it to be the will of the Roman senate, that Lacedæmon should be declared independent ”

“ Twice only he undertook any foreign expeditions, one to Alexandria, and the other to Achaia; but he abandoned the prosecution of the former on the very day fixt for his departure, by being deterred both by ill omens, and the hazard of the voyage. For while he was making the circuit of the temples, having seated himself in that of Vesta, when he attempted to rise, the skirt of his robe stuck fast; and he was instantly seized with such a dimness in his eyes, that he could not see a yard before him. In Achaia, he attempted to make a cut through the Isthmus ”

“ 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 land now enjoyed a long period of peace, and began to recover from the effects of the civil wars. A further boon was the transference of Achaia from the jurisdiction of the Senate to that of the Emperor soon after the accession of Tiberius, who, whatever his private vices may have been, was most considerate in his treatment of the provincials. He sternly repressed attempts at extortion, kept his governors in office for long terms, and, when an earthquake injured the city of Aigion on the gulf of Corinth, excused the citizens from the payment of taxes for three years. ”

“ For in all the democratic states of the day there were two parties,—one recommending obedience to the Roman rescripts, and holding neither law nor tablet nor anything else to be superior to the will of Rome; the other always quoting oaths and tablets, and exhorting the people to be careful about breaking them. Now the latter policy was by far the most popular in Achaia, and the most influential with the 343 multitude; consequently the Romanisers were discredited and denounced among the populace—their opponents glorified. ”

“ Next to Sindica, and Gorgipia upon the sea, is the sea-coast inhabited by the Achæi, Zygi, and Heniochi. It is for the most part without harbours and mountainous, being a portion of the Caucasus.
These people subsist by piracy.
Their boats are slender, narrow, light, and capable of holding about five and twenty men, and rarely thirty. The Greeks call them camaræ. They say, that at the time of the expedition of Jason the Achæi Phthiotæ founded the Achaia there, and the Lacedæmonians, Heniochia. ”

“ Achilles, son of Peleus, greatest by far of Achaians, I am come to learn of Teiresias concerning my return to Ithaca. But none of men in elder days, or of those to be, is more blessed than thou art, Achilles ”

“ And the Achaians laughed merrily, to see him in such a sorry plight.
Antilochus, smiling, took the last prize, half a talent of gold; and he too spake winged words to the Argives: “My friends, ye too will agree with me that the deathless Gods show favor to the older men. Ajax is a little older than I; but Ulysses is of a former generation. It were not easy for any one, except Achilles, fleet of foot, to outrun him.”
Achilles was pleased at the honor done to his swiftness. “Not unrewarded,” he said, “shall the praise be which thou hast bestowed on me: I give thee another half-talent of gold.” ”