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The Achaeans (; ''Akhaioí'') constitute one of the collective names for the Greeks in Homer's ''Iliad'' (used 598 times) and ''Odyssey''. The other common names are Danaans (; ''Danaoi''; used 138 times in the ''Iliad'') and Argives (; ; used 182 times in the ''Iliad'') while Panhellenes ( ''Panhellenes'') and Hellenes (;〔("Hellene" ) entry in ''Collins English Dictionary'', HarperCollins Publishers, 1998.〕 ''Hellenes'') both appear only once;〔See ''Iliad'', II.2.530 for "Panhellenes" and ''Iliad'' II.2.653 for "Hellenes".〕 all of the aforementioned terms were used synonymously to denote a common Greek civilizational identity. In the historical period, the Achaeans were the inhabitants of the region of Achaea, a region in the north-central part of the Peloponnese. The city-states of this region later formed a confederation known as the Achaean League, which was influential during the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. ==Homeric versus later use== The Homeric "long-haired Achaeans" would have been a part of the Mycenaean civilization that dominated Greece from circa 1600 BC until 1100 BC. However, by the Archaic and Classical periods, the term "Achaeans" referred to inhabitants of the much smaller region of Achaea. Herodotus identified the Achaeans of the northern Peloponnese as descendants of the earlier, Homeric Achaeans. According to Pausanias, writing in the 2nd century CE, the term "Achaean" was originally given to those Greeks inhabiting the Argolis and Laconia.〔Pausanias. ''Description of Greece'', VII.1.〕 However, this clearly is not the manner in which Homer uses the term. Pausanias and Herodotus both recount the legend that the Achaeans were forced from their homelands by the Dorians, during the legendary Dorian invasion of the Peloponnese. They then moved into the region that later bore the name of Achaea. A scholarly consensus has not yet been reached on the origin of the historic Achaeans relative to the Homeric Achaeans and is still hotly debated. Former emphasis on presumed race, such as John A. Scott's article about the blond locks of the Achaeans as compared to the dark locks of "Mediterranean" Poseidon,〔.〕 on the basis of hints in Homer, has been rejected. The contrasting belief that "Achaeans", as understood through Homer, is "a name without a country", an ''ethnos'' created in the Epic tradition,〔As William K. Prentice expressed this long-standing skepticism of a genuine Achaean ethnicity in the distant past, at the outset of his article "The Achaeans" (see ).〕 has modern supporters among those who conclude that "Achaeans" were redefined in the 5th century BC, as contemporary speakers of Aeolic Greek. Karl Beloch has suggested that there was no Dorian invasion, but rather that the Peloponnesian Dorians were the Achaeans.〔.〕 Eduard Meyer, disagreeing with Beloch, has instead put forth the suggestion that the real-life Achaeans were mainland pre-Dorian Greeks.〔.〕 His conclusion is based on his research on the similarity between the languages of the Achaeans and pre-historic Arcadians. William Prentice disagrees with both, noting that archeological evidence suggests that the Achaeans instead migrated from "southern Asia Minor to Greece, probably settling first in lower Thessaly" probably prior to 2000 BC.〔.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Achaeans (Homer)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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