Achaeans (Homer)

Homeric versus later use

The Homeric "long-haired Achaeans" would have been a part of the Mycenaean civilization that dominated Greece from circa 1600 BC until 1100 BC. Later, by the Archaic and Classical periods, the term "Achaeans" referred to inhabitants of the much smaller region of Achaea. Herodotus identified the Achaeans of the northern Peloponnese as descendants of the earlier, Homeric Achaeans. According to Pausanias, writing in the 2nd century CE, the term "Achaean" was originally given to those Greeks inhabiting the Argolis and Laconia.

Pausanias and Herodotus both recount the legend that the Achaeans were forced from their homelands by the Dorians, during the legendary Dorian invasion of the Peloponnese. They then moved into the region later called Achaea.

A scholarly consensus has not yet been reached on the origin of the historic Achaeans relative to the Homeric Achaeans and is still hotly debated. Former emphasis on presumed race, such as John A. Scott's article about the blond locks of the Achaeans as compared to the dark locks of "Mediterranean" Poseidon, on the basis of hints in Homer, has been rejected by some. The contrasting belief that "Achaeans", as understood through Homer, is "a name without a country", an ethnos created in the Epic tradition, has modern supporters among those who conclude that "Achaeans" were redefined in the 5th century BC, as contemporary speakers of Aeolic Greek.

Karl Beloch suggested there was no Dorian invasion, but rather that the Peloponnesian Dorians were the Achaeans. Eduard Meyer, disagreeing with Beloch, instead put forth the suggestion that the real-life Achaeans were mainland pre-Dorian Greeks. His conclusion is based on his research on the similarity between the languages of the Achaeans and pre-historic Arcadians. William Prentice disagreed with both, noting archeological evidence suggests the Achaeans instead migrated from "southern Asia Minor to Greece, probably settling first in lower Thessaly" probably prior to 2000 BC.

Hittite documents

Emil Forrer, a Swiss Hittitologist who worked on the Boghazköy tablets in Berlin, said the Achaeans of pre-Homeric Greece were directly associated with the term "Land of Ahhiyawa" mentioned in the Hittite texts. His conclusions at the time were challenged by other Hittitologists (i.e. Johannes Friedrich in 1927 and Albrecht Götze in 1930), as well as by Ferdinand Sommer, who published his Die Ahhijava-Urkunden ("The Ahhiyawa Documents") in 1932.

Some Hittite texts mention a nation lying to the west called Ahhiyawa. In the earliest reference to this land, a letter outlining the treaty violations of the Hittite vassal Madduwatta, it is called Ahhiya. Another important example is the Tawagalawa Letter written by an unnamed Hittite king (most probably Hattusili III) of the empire period (14th–13th century BC) to the king of Ahhiyawa, treating him as an equal and implying Miletus (Millawanda) was under his control. It also refers to an earlier "Wilusa episode" involving hostility on the part of Ahhiyawa. Ahhiya(wa) 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 early Greek Ϝίλιον Wilion, later Ἴλιον Ilion, the name of the acropolis of Troy). The exact relationship of the term Ahhiyawa to the Achaeans beyond a similarity in pronunciation was hotly debated by scholars, even following the discovery that Mycenaean Linear B is an early form of Greek; the earlier debate was summed up in 1984 by Hans G. Güterbock of the Oriental Institute. More recent research based on new readings and interpretations of the Hittite texts, as well as of the material evidence for Mycenaean contacts with the Anatolian mainland, came to the conclusion that Ahhiyawa referred to the Mycenaean world, or at least to a part of it.

Greek mythology

In Greek mythology, the perceived cultural divisions among the Hellenes were represented as legendary lines of descent that identified kinship groups, with each line being derived from an eponymous ancestor. Each of the Greek ethne were said to be named in honor of their respective ancestors: Achaeus of the Achaeans, Danaus of the Danaans, Cadmus of the Cadmeans (the Thebans), Hellen of the Hellenes (not to be confused with Helen of Troy), Aeolus of the Aeolians, Ion of the Ionians, and Dorus of the Dorians.

Cadmus from Phoenicia, Danaus from Egypt, and Pelops from Anatolia each gained a foothold in mainland Greece and were assimilated and Hellenized. Hellen, Graikos, Magnes, and Macedon were sons of Deucalion and Pyrrha, the only people who survived the Great Flood; the ethne were said to have originally been named Graikoi after the elder son but later renamed Hellenes after Hellen who was proved to be the strongest. Sons of Hellen and the nymph Orseis were Dorus, Xuthos, and Aeolus. Sons of Xuthos and Kreousa, daughter of Erechthea, were Ion and Achaeus.

According to Hyginus, 22 Achaeans killed 362 Trojans during their ten years at Troy.

Etymology

According to Margalit Finkelberg, the name Ἀχαιοί/Ἀχαιϝοί is derived from Hittite Aḫḫiyawā. However, Robert S. P. Beekes doubted the validity of this derivation and suggested a Pre-Greek proto-form *Akay^wa-. The etymology of Danaoi is uncertain; according to Beekes "the name is certainly Pre-Greek".