Achaei
（
Ἀχαιοί). One of the chief Hellenic races, and, according
to tradition, descended from Achaeus, who was the son of Xuthus and Creüsa, and
grandson of Hellen. The Achaei originally dwelt in Thessaly, and from thence migrated to
Peloponnesus, the whole of which became subject to them with the exception of Arcadia, and the
country afterwards called Achaea. As they were the ruling nation in Peloponnesus in the heroic
times, Homer frequently gives the name of Achaei to the collective Greeks. On the conquest of
Peloponnesus by the Heraclidae and the Dorians, eighty years after the Trojan War, many of the
Achaei under Tisamenus, the son of Orestes, left their country and took possession of the
northern coast of Peloponnesus, then inhabited by Ionians, whom they expelled from the
country, which was henceforth called Achaea. The expelled Ionians migrated to Attica and Asia
Minor. The Achaei settled in twelve cities: Pellené, Aegira, Aegae, Bura,
Helicé, Aegium, Rhypae, Patrae, Pharae, Olenus, Dymé, and Tritaea. These
twelve cities formed a league for mutual defence and protection. The Achaei had little
influence in the affairs of Greece till the time of the successors of Alexander. In B.C. 281,
the Achaei, who were then subject to the Macedonians, resolved to renew their ancient league
for the purpose of shaking off the Macedonian yoke. This was the origin of the
celebrated
Achaean League (q.v.), which did
not, however, obtain much importance till B.C. 251, when Aratus united to it his native town,
Sicyon. The example of Sicyon was followed by Corinth and many other towns in Greece, and the
league soon became the chief political power in Greece. At length the Achaei declared war
against the Romans, who destroyed the league, and thus put an end to the independence of
Greece. Corinth, then the chief town of the league, was taken by the Roman general Mummius, in
B.C. 146, and the whole of southern Greece made a Roman province under the name of
Achaea (q.v.).
