This article will be permanently flagged as inappropriate and made unaccessible to everyone. Are you certain this article is inappropriate? Excessive Violence Sexual Content Political / Social
Email Address:
Article Id: WHEBN0000508563 Reproduction Date:
The Achaean League (Greek: κοινὸν τῶν Ἀχαιῶν), also known as the Aegean League, was a Hellenistic-era confederation of Greek city states on the northern and central Peloponnese. The first league was formed in the 5th century BC. The second Achaean League existed between 280 BC and 146 BC. The league was named after the region of Achaea.
The regional Achaean League was reformed in 281/0 BC[1] (on the basis of a looser alliance of the founding city-states extending back to the 5th century BC), and soon expanded beyond its Achaean heartland. It was first joined by the city of Sicyon in 251,[1] which provided it with its first great leader, Aratus of Sicyon. The League soon grew to control much of the Peloponnese, considerably weakening the Macedonian hold on the area. It acquired Corinth in 243 BC, Megalopolis in 235 BC and Argos in 229 BC.[2] The increased size of the league meant a bigger citizen army and more wealth, which was used to hire mercenaries. However the league soon ran into difficulties with the revived Sparta of Cleomenes III. Aratus was forced to call in the aid of the Macedonian King, Antigonus Doson, to defeat Cleomenes in Sellasia. Antigonus re-established Macedonian control over much of the region.
In 220 BC, the Achaean League entered into a war against the Aetolian League, which was called "the second Allied War". The young king Philip V of Macedon sided with the Achaeans and called for a Panhellenic conference in Corinth, where the Aetolian aggression was condemned.
After Aratus's death, however, the League was able to reap much of the benefits of Macedon's defeat by Rome in 197 BC. Under the leadership of Philopoemen, the League was able to finally defeat a heavily weakened Sparta and take control of the entire Peloponnese.
The League's dominance was not to last long, however. During the Third Macedonian War (171–168 BC), the League flirted with the idea of an alliance with Perseus, and the Romans punished it by taking several hostages to ensure good behavior, including Polybius, the Hellenistic historian who wrote about the rise of the Roman Republic. In 146 BC, the league erupted into an open revolt against Roman domination, the Achaean War. The Romans under Lucius Mummius defeated the Achaeans at the Battle of Corinth, razed Corinth and dissolved the League. G.T. Griffith has written that Achaean War was a hopeless enterprise for the Achaeans, badly led and backed by no adequate reserves of money or men.[2] Lucius Mummius received the agnomen Achaicus ("conqueror of Achaea") for his role.
The original name koinon of Achaeans (Achaean League) continues to exist in epigraphy, denoting either the previous Peloponnesian members (see koinon of Free Laconians) or the whole of Roman Achaea. In c. 120 BC Achaeans of cities in the Peloponnese dedicated an honorary inscription to Olympian Zeus, after a military expedition with Gnaeus Domitius against the Galatians in Gallia Transalpina.[3] In Athens, AD 221-222 the koinon of Achaeans, when the strategos was Egnatius Brachyllus, decided to send an embassy to the emperor Caracalla[4]
An inscription from ancient Orchomenus dating to 234–224 BC states that members of the Achaean Federation must invoke Zeus and Athena.[5]
The Achaean army was an army of the traditional hoplite type. From the 270s onwards however, much like the rest of Greece, the emergence of the Celtic shield known as the thureos was incorporated into Greek warfare and a new type of troop was developed. Reforming their troops into thureophoroi, the Achaean army was now composed of light troops. The thureophoroi were a mixture of evolved peltasts and light hoplites, carrying the thureos shield, a thrusting spear and javelins. Plutarch tells of how they could be effective at a distance, but in close combat the narrow thureos shield disadvantaged them. He also describes how they would form a formation of sorts, but it would be ineffective, as it would not have inter-locked shields or a ‘leveled line of spears’.[6] Aratus, one of the major Achaean strategoi and statesmen was known for his use of light forces for irregular operations, a type of warfare suited to the thureophoroi but not suited to operations in the open field.[7]
The League in 217 decided to maintain a standing force of 8,000 mercenary foot and 500 mercenary cavalry, added to a picked citizen force of 3,000 infantry and 300 cavalry, of which 500 foot and 50 horse would come from Argos and the same amount from Megalopolis.[8] Aratus also obtained 500 foot and 50 horse each from Taurion and the Messenians for defence of parts of the League open to attack via Laconia.[8] The citizen infantry would have been armed as thureophoroi, apart from the citizen light troops who would have been archers and slingers etc. This picked citizen force may well have existed before these so-called reforms, at least on an official basis, as we know of a similar elite force of the same size as
From the ancient political geography of Arcadia, not totally compatible with modern Arcadia
The dates in brackets indicate the year of first adhesion. Some cities had periods of separation or foreign occupation and later joined again.
The city of Helike had been an important member of the first Achaean League, but sank into the sea following a disastrous earthquake in 373 BC. The town of Olenus, also one of the twelve members of the first Achaean League, had been abandoned before 280 BC, but was sometimes counted as though still extant.
Besides many city-states on the Mainland joining the Achaean Federation, certain Mediterranean island city-states also became part of the federation. For example, Kydonia on Crete joined at some time after 219 BC.[13]
The below are the original Peloponesian members, except the ancient regions of Sparta, Elis and Messenia. Later Hypana in Elis, Corone, Messene, Sparta and Pagae in Attica were joined by conquest. For the reported Elisphasii: possibly this word ought to be Helissonii, for the name Elisphasii occurs nowhere else in ancient history. In 223 BC, Megara in Attica deserted the Achaean League and joined the Boeotian Confederacy.
[12]
Achaean League, Plutarch, Egypt, Syria, Lydiadas of Megalopolis
Ancient Greece, Thebes, Greece, Battle of Thermopylae, Greek mythology, Roman Republic
Julius Caesar, Roman Kingdom, Roman Empire, Ancient Rome, Augustus
Roman Republic, Ancient Egypt, Sparta, Anatolia, Achaean League
Achaean League, Sparta, Aetolian League, First Macedonian War, Argos
Roman Republic, Byzantine Empire, Roman Empire, Sparta, Han Dynasty