The situation is less clear in the case of the earliest helots, who, according to Theopompus, were descended from the initial Achaeans, who had been conquered by the Dorians.

The Achaeans ( according to Homer ) were known to place additional, empty thrones in the royal palaces and temples so that the gods could be seated when they wished to be.

After the conclusion of the alliance between the Argives, Achaeans, Eleans and Athens, the humiliation of the Spartans in the 420 Olympic Games and the invasion of Epidaurus by the allies, the Spartans were compelled to move against them, fearing an alliance with Corinth and having amassed an army that was, according to Thucydides, ' the best army ever assembled in Greece to that time.

Homer pictures Apollo on the side of the Trojans, fighting against the Achaeans, during the Trojan War.

The contrasting view that " Achaeans ", as understood through Homer, are " 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 fifth century, as contemporary speakers of Aeolic Greek.

Homer referred to select young men as kouretes, when Agamemnon instructs Odysseus to pick out kouretes, the bravest among the Achaeans " to bear gifts to Achilles.

# redirect Achaeans ( Homer )

* The Trojan War tapestry referred to by Homer in Book III of the Iliad, where Iris disguises herself as Laodice and finds Helen " working at a great web of purple linen, on which she was embroidering the battles between Trojans and Achaeans, that Ares had made them fight for her sake.

:( a ) the Greek Achaeans known from Homer,

Homer records that Miletus ( later an Ionian city ), together with the mountain of Phthries, the river Maeander and the crests of Mount Mycale were held by the Carians at the time of the Trojan War and that the Carians, qualified by the poet as being of incomprehensible speech, joined the Trojans against the Achaeans under the leadership of Nastes, brother of Amphimachos (" he who fights both ways ") and son of Nomion.

* Achaeans ( Homer )

On one hand, Homer portrays Nestor as a wise man ; Nestor repeatedly offers advice to the Achaeans that has been claimed to be anachronistic in Homer's time – for example, arranging the armies by tribes and clans or effectively using chariots in battle.

# REDIRECT Achaeans ( Homer )

# REDIRECT Achaeans ( Homer )

Homer refers to Achaeans as the dominant tribe during the Trojan war period usually dated to the 12th-11th centuries BC, using " Hellenes " to describe a relatively small tribe in Thessaly.

The tribes later called Aeolians and Ionians established several feudal kingdoms around Greece, and the historians called them Myceneans after their most powerful kingdom Mycenea in Peloponnese, or Myceneans-Achaeans because in Homer the Achaeans were the dominating tribe in Greece and the name Achiyawa that appears in Hittite texts seems to correspond to a thalassocratic country which might be Mycenea.

Homer saw bees as wild, never tame, as when the Achaeans issued forth from their ship encampment " like buzzing swarms of bees that come out in relays from a hollow rock " ( Iliad, book II ).

Odysseus and his men were blown far off course to lands unknown to the Achaeans ; there Odysseus had many adventures, including the famous encounter with the Cyclops Polyphemus, and an audience with the seer Teiresias in Hades.

In the Iliad, the Achaeans set up their camp near the mouth of the River Scamander ( presumably modern Karamenderes ), where they had beached their ships.

Moreover, Paris and Helen had stopped in Mysia on their way to Troy, and had asked Telephus to fight off the Achaeans should they come.

When the sacrifice of Iphigenia ( Agamemnon ’ s daughter ) became a necessity for Achaeans to sail away from Aulis, king Agamemnon had to choose between sacrificing his daughter and resigning from his post of high commander among Achaeans ( in which case Diomedes would probably become the leader ).

Supposedly, the Ionians had been forced out of their homeland by the Achaeans, who had been forced out of their homeland by the Dorian invasion.

The isoglosses of the Cypriot and Arcadian dialects testify that the Achaeans had settled in Cyprus.

In 226 BC, Mantinea, which had been captured by the Achaeans, appealed to Cleomenes for assistance in expelling the Achaean garrison.

Achaeans who had been invaded by the Dorians-where the Achaeans of the plains became helots, the perioeci were also Dorians ; however when the Dorians settled in Laconia there were five different groups of Dorians who rose to power.

However the exact relationship of the term Ahhiyawa to the Achaeans beyond a similarity in pronunciation is 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.

In the Iliad when Zeus sends Apollo to revive the wounded Hector of Troy, Apollo, holding the aegis, charges the Achaeans, pushing them back to their ships drawn up on the shore.

However the exact relationship of the term Ahhiyawa to the Achaeans beyond a similarity in pronunciation is 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.

When the Achaeans entertained Wednesday last at their annual Carnival masquerade ball, Miss Margaret Pierson was chosen to rule over the festivities, presented at the Muncipal Auditorium and chosen as her ladies in waiting were Misses Clayton Nairne, Eleanor Eustis, Lynn Chapman, Irwin Leatherman of Robinsonville, Miss. and Helene Rowley.

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.

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

For ten years the Achaeans besieged Troy and their allies in the east.

Few of the Achaeans returned safely to their homes and many founded colonies in distant shores.

During the next days, however, the Trojans drove the Achaeans back to their camp and were stopped at the Achaean wall by Poseidon.

Among the lesser Achaeans very few reached their homes.

When Hector was driving the Achaeans back toward their ships, Teucer gave the Argives some success by killing many of the charging Trojans, including Hector's charioteer, Archeptolemus son of Iphitos.

Identifying the god of war, Diomedes protected the Achaeans by ordering them to withdraw towards their ships.

: For Greece is already entirely obedient to you, and will remain so: the Achaeans from genuine affection ; the Aetolians from the terror which their disasters in the present war have inspired them.

Among the Sea peoples identified in Egyptian records are the Ekwesh, a group of Bronze Age Greeks ( Achaeans ); Teresh, Tyrrhenians, ancestors of the Etruscans ; Luka, an Anatolian people of the Aegean ( their name survives in the region of Lycia ); Sherden, probably Sardinians ; Shekelesh, probably the Italic tribe called Siculi ; Peleset, generally believed to refer to the Philistines, who might have come from Crete and were with the Tekrur ( possibly Greek Teucrians ) the only major tribe of the Sea Peoples known to have settled permanently in the Levant.

In 200 BC, alarmed at the ease with which he was ravaging their territory, the Achaeans asked the Macedonian King Philip V for help, which he did not provide.

Virgil, in Aeneid, described the Achaeans hiding their fleet at Tenedos's bay, toward the end of the Trojan War, to trick Troy into believing the war was over and allowing them to take the Trojan Horse within Troy's city walls.

Later Ciconian reinforcements arrive and attack the invading Achaeans, killing so many of them that Odysseus and his men are forced to flee in their ships.

: For Greece is already entirely obedient to you, and will remain so: the Achaeans from genuine affection ; the Aetolians from the terror which their disasters in the present war have inspired them.

The Achaeans responded by seizing Sparta and unsuccessfully forcing their laws on it.

After the division of Alexander's empire they became part of the Seleucid empire ; in this context we read of them fighting for the Seleucids in the battle of Raphia against the Egyptians ( 217 BC ), and their name is cited by Antiochus III's ( 223 – 187 BC ) envoys at Aegium to the Achaeans as one of the many people under the sway of the Seleucids.