Achaeans

The Achaeans are an ancient Greek ethnonym used in both literary and historical contexts to denote the Greek peoples associated with the region of Achaea in the northern Peloponnese, as well as the wider Greek world in some sources. The term originates from Achaea, a geographic area that later became a political region within Greece, and it was used by different authors to describe various Greek communities.

In Homer, the Achaeans are the leading group of Greeks who fight at Troy. The Iliad and the Odyssey frequently use Achaeans alongside Danaans, Argives, and other epithets to refer to the coalition of Greek forces and, by extension, to the Greek-speaking peoples as a whole. The usage emphasizes ethnic and regional identity within the broader Greek world.

Historically, the Achaeans are linked to the Mycenaean civilization of the late Bronze Age, and the term persists in classical Greek as a designation for the peoples of the Achaean region and their descendants. Over time, “Achaean” came to be used more broadly in some contexts to describe Greeks inhabiting parts of the Peloponnese and central Greece.

In the Hellenistic period, the Achaean League emerged as a formal federal confederation of Greek city-states in Achaea and surrounding areas. Founded in the 3rd century BCE, it sought mutual defense and political autonomy, expanding to include several major cities such as Dyme, Patras, Aegion, Pharae, and later Corinth. The League persisted until Roman conquest in 146 BCE, after which the term Achaean continued to be used in historical references.

Today, Achaea is a regional unit of modern Greece, and the term Achaean survives primarily in historical and literary contexts to denote the ancient Greek peoples of the region.