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Who were the Achaeans really?

2022-12-10 15:59:14Histori SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Who were the Achaeans really?
The Triumph of Achilles

All the Greeks who surrounded the walls of Troy, according to the Iliad, are Achaeans, or inhabitants of Achaia. But, according to some researchers, behind that name was also hidden a semi-nomadic people who immigrated to Greece from Central Europe in the 2nd millennium BC. After integrating with the indigenous people, they are thought to have settled in the Argolid in the Peloponnese, where they established several city-states and gave birth to the civilization we now call the Mycenaeans from the city of Mycenae

Let's say you decide to write a novel about heroes, battles and queens, all seasoned by a dash of magic (or divine intervention, as you like): what era would you set it in? Perhaps in an ancient age full of fairy tales, distant but not far away. The composer of the Iliad reasoned more or less like this. For the author of the poem, who lived nearly 4 centuries after the Trojan War (which happened around 1200 BC), the ancient era was that of the Mycenaeans.

All the Greeks who surrounded the walls of Troy, according to the Iliad, are Achaeans, or inhabitants of Achaia. But, according to some researchers, behind that name was also hidden a semi-nomadic people who immigrated to Greece from Central Europe in the 2nd millennium BC. After integrating with the indigenous people, they are thought to have settled in the Argolid in the Peloponnese, where they established several city-states and gave birth to the civilization we now call the Mycenaean from the city of Mycenae, one of the largest centers along with Argos, Tiryns, Pylos and Sparta. That civilization was the background of the historical narrative called the Iliad.

gentlewoman

Skilled architects, lovers of beauty and supporters of equality between the sexes, the Mycenaeans had one major flaw: they were warlike. Which caused tensions with neighbors, including compatriots. That kind of character appears in the Iliad in the character of Agamemnon, commander of all the Greeks in Troy. Son of Atreus, king of Mycenae, the legendary figure has much in common with the typical sovereign who ruled every Mycenaean city-state. "Like the sovereigns of the Homeric poem, the Mycenaean kings were named according to the paternal line of succession," confirms Masimo Cultraro, archaeologist and researcher at the Institute of Archaeological and Monumental Goods in Cnr. The Mycenaean one was an aristocratic society where the kings were clothed with absolute power, represented by the scepter. "There were no collegial bodies to restrain the royal power: the sovereign appointed the palace officials, exercised full authority over the administration and had the functions of a judge", adds the expert. He generally kept his majesty intact even in death. As in the Near East, the people thought that the dead king was received by the gods and deserved the same honors. Which did not happen to Agamemnon.

Human sacrifices

Upon returning from the war, the sovereign found a not-so-warm welcome: a death orchestrated by his wife, Clytemnestra. This could not excuse (apart from his betrayal with the Trojan Cassandra) the sacrifice of his daughter, Iphigenia, In fact, her father had sacrificed her on the altar of the Goddess Artemis to guarantee a smooth sailing to Troy. Just a legend? Not for everyone: some scholars are convinced that on certain occasions, the Mycenaeans actually performed human sacrifices to purify their city. The bones of several children and the skeleton of a young woman, found on a table under the ruins of a Mycenaean temple where the ritual was being performed, prove it.

However, very few Mycenaean women had this fate. Worthy companions to those men, they enjoyed a freedom unusual for that time. Just think of Helen, the legendary cause of the outbreak of the Trojan War.

Divine Helen

Who were the Achaeans really?

The beautiful wife of Menelaus, King of Sparta and brother of Agamemnon, was a rich and powerful queen, an active rather than passive part of what Homer recounted as an abduction. Her fellow citizens worshiped her, so much so that on the hill where Menelaus' palace is thought to have been, they found 300 statues related to her cult.

"This woman had an important role in Mycenaean society," confirms Cultraro. "It is demonstrated, in official ceremonies and in court life, the presence of a queen at the side of the king. Bizhu and family treasures ended up in female graves and the transmission of inheritance was done by the mother, if there were no male heirs.

So the Mycenaeans were not only full-time housewives and mothers. Many worked in the palace as functionaries, dominated the sector of clothing production, pottery sold in half of the Mediterranean, and the wine trade, like the old woman whose remains were found next to some amphorae: those with which, perhaps, she had managed a certain enrichment.

A completely different treatment was reserved for slaves, at the bottom rung of the social pyramid. "They were often referred to according to the city of origin: "women of Miletus", "women of Lemnos". In all these cases, it was about foreign servants, captured in wars or bought in the slave market", explains Cultraro. A common fate for the wives and daughters of defeated enemies.

Special friendship

In what other way could the three warriors who were long away from home fulfill their desires? The hero of the Iliad, Achilles offers us an example: the beautiful Briseis, the wife of the king of Cilicia, Minet, who was left a widow by the hand of the hero became the prey of war, or rather his slave in bed. When Agamemnon took it, Achilles was angry, but never as angry as when Hector killed his friend, Patroclus. An exaggerated reaction that many researchers have interpreted as a sign of a more than friendly relationship with the comrade in arms. "The sources written about the Mycenaeans are of an administrative nature and they don't say anything about it", underlines Cultraro. "We know that in aristocratic-warrior societies like the Mycenaean one, the close bond between young people who together faced courage and military tests to enter the world of adults,

Merciless

The Mycenaeans were able to behave in war like Achille. "Training, strength and skill were one of the components of the Mycenaean aristocracy. At this point, the parallels with the Homeric poem are close: revenge, counter-reactions, and violence were the basic components of this type of society", adds the expert. The Trojans must have known it, behind the walls, as they watched those muscular, well-endowed men who averaged more than six feet tall, an unusual height at the time.

For psychological warfare, also described by Homer, the best move was to violate a corpse or not to bury it: the Mycenaeans were convinced that the funeral rite improved the dead's journey to the realm of the dead. Without a burial, his soul would wander without peace, following the relatives he had not realized. Thus we can say that the violation of Hector's corpse also contributed to the fall of Troy.

But the victory of the Iliad was a swan song for the Mycenaeans: undermined perhaps by climatic changes, by the crisis of trade, which apparently came from the incursions of the Sea Peoples and a series of earthquakes, the Mycenaean civilization gave way to the Dorians who came from the north and disappeared. To return four centuries later, to Homer's gallows.


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