Читать книгу The Herodotus Encyclopedia - Группа авторов - Страница 53

CHRISTOPHER BARON

University of Notre Dame

A people from the region of PHTHIOTIS in central Greece, between THESSALY and the MALIAN GULF, north of the SPERCHEIUS RIVER (BA 55 D2). Their land lay on the route taken by XERXES’ invasion force in 480 BCE. Herodotus lists these Achaeans among the Greeks who gave EARTH AND WATER in submission to the king while the Persians were in northern Greece (7.132.1), and their troops fight on the Persian side at THERMOPYLAE (7.185.2). In the Greeks’ first attempt to make a stand at TEMPE in Thessaly, they use HALUS in Achaea Phthiotis as their port, before retreating to Thermopylae (7.173). When Xerxes reaches Halus, Herodotus pauses the narrative to relate a “local legend” (epikhōrios logos) concerning a temple of ZEUS Laphystius (“Devourer”) and the descendants of PHRIXUS (7.197).

Homer uses “Achaeans” as one of his terms (along with Argives and Danaans) for the Greeks as a whole, but the name was also associated with Achilles’ kingdom of Phthia and those who followed him (Il. 2.684). At some point in the ARCHAIC AGE, the northern part of the PELOPONNESE came to be called Achaea (cf. Hdt. 1.145), and this latter region maintained priority with regard to the name. When the Romans annexed Greece after their conquest in 146 BCE, they named the province Achaea.

The Achaeans of Phthiotis (or simply Phthiōtai) are included by several sources as original members of the Delphic Amphictyony (Hall 2002, 134–54).

SEE ALSO: Achaeans (Peloponnese); Amphictyones; Athamas; Cytissorus; Ethnicity; Medize