The Pan-Ionian sanctuary of Poseidon on the Asiatic promontory of Mycale was regarded as perpetuating a cult from Peloponnesian Achaea, and the league of twelve cities which maintained it, as imitated from an Achaean dodecapolis, and as claiming (absurdly, according to Herodotus i.
During the Macedonian supremacy the town passed in turn from Cassander and Demetrius Poliorcetes to Antigonus Gonatas, and finally was incorporated in the Achaean League.
Its fortifications were strengthened by the tyrant Nabis, but in 195 B.C. it was invested and taken by Titus and Lucius Quintius Flamininus, and, though recovered by Nabis two or three years later, was recaptured immediately after his murder (192 B.C.) by Philopoemen and Aulus Atilius and remained in the Achaean League until its dissolution in 146 B.C. Subsequently it formed the most important of the Eleutherolaconian towns, a group of twenty-four, later eighteen, communities leagued together to maintain their autonomy against Sparta and declared free by Augustus.
Under the dominion of the Roman republic its national league was dissolved, but was revived by Augustus, who also restored to Phocis the votes in the Delphic Amphictyony which it had lost in 346 and enrolled it in the new Achaean synod.
By her treacherous attack upon the frontier-town of Oropus (156) Athens indirectly brought about the conflict between Rome and the Achaean League which resulted in the eventual loss of Greek independence, but remained herself a free town with rights secured by treaty.
In the Homeric poems Laconia appears as the realm of an Achaean prince, Menelaus, whose capital was perhaps Therapne on the left bank of the Eurotas, S.E.
Of Sparta; the Achaean conquerors, however, probably contented themselves with a suzerainty over Laconia and part of Messenia and were too few to occupy the whole land.
The Achaean kingdom fell before the incoming Dorians, and throughout the classical period the history of Laconia is that of its capital Sparta (q.v.).
Quinctius Flamininus, and became members of the Achaean League.
Sybaris (721) and Crotona (703) were Achaean settlements; Locri Epizephyrii (about 710) was settled by Ozolian Locrians, so that, had it not been for the Dorian colony of Tarentum, the southern coast of Italy would have been entirely occupied by a group of Achaean cities.
After the Achaean cities had combined to destroy the Ionic Siris, and had founded Metapontum as a counterpoise to the Dorian Tarentum, there seems to have been little strife among the Italiotes.
Croton maintained alone the leading position which had belonged jointly to the Achaean cities (Diod.
The second league is further interesting as the precursor of the Achaean and Aetolian Leagues.
All those parts of Peloponnese and the islands which in historic times were " Dorian " are ruled by recently established dynasties of " Achaean " chiefs; the home of the Asiatic Dorians is simply " Caria "; and the geographical " catalogue " in Iliad ii.
The addition of an "Achaean " group, and the inclusion of this and the Ionic group under a single generic name, would naturally follow the recognition of the real kinship of the " Achaean " colonies of Magna Graecia with those of Ionia.
But in proportion as an earlier date has become more probable for Homer, the hypothesis of Ionic origin has become less tenable, and the belief better founded (I) that the poems represent accurately a welldefined phase of culture in prehistoric Greece, and (2) that this " Homeric " or " Achaean " phase was closed by some such general catastrophe as is presumed by the legends.
But these have also some forms in common with the " Aeolic " dialect of Boeotia and Thessaly, which in historic times was spoken also in Doris; Locris and Elis present similar northern " Achaean-Doric " dialects.
Its area coincides also approximately with that of the previous Achaean conquests; and if the Dorians were as backward culturally as traditions and archaeology suggest, it is not improbable that they soon adopted the language of the conquered, as the Norman conquerors did in England.
Language is no better guide, for it is not clear that the Dorian dialect is that of the most recent conquerors, and not rather that of the conquered Achaean inhabitants of southern Greece; in any case it presents no such affinities with any non-Hellenic speech as would serve to trace its origin.
In 243 Corinth was freed by Aratus and incorporated into the Achaean league.
To the incorporation of Mantineia into the Achaean League (233) Tegea replied by allying itself with the Aetolians, who in turn made it over to Cleomenes III.
From the latter it was transferred by Antigonus Doson to the Achaean League (222); in 218 it was again occupied by the Spartans but reconquered in 207 by the Achaean general Philopoemen.
About 235 B.C. Mantineia entered the Achaean League, from which it had obtained protection against Spartan encroachments, but soon passed in turn to the Aetolians and to Cleomenes III.
Mantineia regained its autonomous position in the Achaean League in 192, and its original name during a visit of the emperor Hadrian in A.D.
The thoroughly national character of Heracles is shown by his being the mythical ancestor of the Dorian dynastic tribe, while revered by Ionian Athens, Lelegian Opus and Aeolo-Phoenician Thebes, and closely associated with the Achaean heroes Peleus and Telamon.
MYRMIDONES, in Greek legend, an Achaean race, in Homeric times inhabiting Phthiotis in Thessaly.
Some scholars suppose them to have been of Achaean race, but they were more probably the aborigines of Laconia who had been enslaved by the Achaeans before the Dorian conquest.
559), a small Peloponnesian city, in the prehistoric period of the Achaean race, long before the Dorian immigration.
In return for the excesses of the democracies Rome dissolved the league, which, however, was allowed to revive under Augustus, and merged with the other central Greek federations in the Achaean synod.
By enrolling it in the Achaean League he secured it against Macedonia, and with funds received from Ptolemy Philadelphus he pacified the returned exiles.
To Aratus is due the credit of having made the Achaean League an effective instrument against tyrants and foreign enemies.
Philopoemen's great merit lies in his having restored to his compatriots that military efficiency without which the Achaean League for all its skilful diplomacy could never stand.
Endeavouring next to expand into Peloponnesus, they allied themselves with Antigonus Gonatas of Macedonia against the Achaean league, and besides becoming protectors of Elis and Messenia won several Arcadian cities.
The raids of two Aetolian chiefs in Achaean territory (220) led to a coalition between Achaea and Philip V.
The federal constitution closely resembled that of the Achaean league, for which it doubtless served as a model.
About 1300 B.C. They found the land occupied by a people known by the ancients as Pelasgians, who continued down to classical times the main element in the population even in the states under Achaean and later under Dorian rule.
The Penestae in Thessaly, the Helots in Laconia and the Gymnesii at Argos, whilst it practically composed the whole population of Arcadia and Attica, which never came under either Achaean or Dorian rule.
This people had dwelt in the Aegean from the Stone Age, and, though still in the Bronze Age at the Achaean conquest, had made great advances in the useful and ornamental arts.
In Argolis Proetus built Tiryns, but later, under Perseus, Mycenae took the lead until the Achaean conquest.
All the ancient dynasties traced their descent from Poseidon, who at the time of the Achaean conquest was the chief male divinity of Greece and the islands.
The leaders of the Achaean invasion were Pelops, who took possession of Elis, and Aeacus, who became master of Aegina and was said to have introduced there the worship of Zeus Panhellenius, whose cult was also set up at Olympia.
The Achaean and Aetolian Leagues are independent powers, which the Macedonian can indeed check by garrisons in Corinth, Chalcis and elsewhere, but which keep a field clear for Hellenic freedom within their borders.
It was especially important in the ancient Achaean centres, Argos, Mycenae and Sparta, which she claims in the Iliad (iv.
Subsequently he came into close connexion with the Achaean churches and especially with Corinth, bearing letters from Paul and being charged with promoting the proposed collection for poor Christians in Judaea.
His position is rather that of an overlord, or Bretwalda, like Agamemnon's among the Achaean anaktes.
After several unavailing attempts Aratus contrived to win Argos for the Achaean League (229), in which it remained save during a brief occupation by the Spartans Cleomenes III.
Under the Empire, Argos was the headquarters of the Achaean synod, and continued to be a resort of Roman merchants.
Subsequently it joined the Achaean League, and we find Messenian troops fighting along with the Achaeans and Antigonus Doson at Sellasia in 222 B.C. Philip V.
72, really an Achaean), who thus became ruler of the Dorians, the three branches of that race being named after these three heroes.
364 seq.) that they were the original Achaean inhabitants of the country, that for the first generation after the Dorian invasion they shared in the franchise of the invaders, but that this was afterwards taken from them and they were reduced to a subject condition and forced to pay tribute.
The term, however, came to denote not a nationality but a political status, and though the main body of the perioeci may have been Achaean in origin, yet they afterwards included Arcadians on the northern frontier of Laconia, Dorians, especially in Cythera and in Messenia, and Ionians in Cynuria.
The Achaean League was likewise highly organized; joint action was strictly limited, and the individual cities had sovereign power over internal affairs.
In the Achaean League the name is given to ten elective officers who presided over the assembly, and Corinth sent "Epidemiurgi" every year to Potidaea, officials who apparently answered to the Spartan harmosts.
The historical divergences of Achaean into Aeolian and Ionic were later than the Migration, and were due to the well-known effects of change of soil and air.