The Achaeans were one of the four races into which the ancient Greeks were divided. In early times they inhabited a part of Northern Greece and of the Peloponnesus. They are represented by Homer as a brave and warlike people, and so distinguished were they that he usually calls the Greeks in general Achaeans. Latterly they were settled in the district of the Peloponnesus, called after them Achaia, and forming a narrow belt of coast on the south side of the Gulf of Corinth. From very early times a confederacy or league existed among the twelve towns of this region. After the death of Alexander the Great it was broken up, but was revived again, in 280 BC, and from this time grew in power until it spread over the whole Peloponnesus. It was finally dissolved by the Romans, in 147 BC, and after this the whole of Greece, except Thessaly, was called Achaia or Achgea. *Acholi
The Acholi are a farming and pastoral people of northern Uganda and southern Sudan. Research Achaeans
Bajazet I (Bayasid I) was a Turkish emperor. In 1389, having strangled his brother Jacob, succeeded his father Murad or Amurath, who fell in the battle of Cassova against the Serbians. From the rapidity of his conquests he received the name of Ilderim, the Lightning. In three years he subjected Bulgaria, part of Serbia, Macedonia, Thessaly, and the states of Asia Minor, and besiegedConstantinople (Istanbul) for ten years, defeating Sigismund and the allied Hungarians, Poles, and French, in 1395. The attack of Timur (Tamerlane) on Natolia, in 1400, saved the Greek Empire, Bajazet being defeated and taken prisoner by him near Ancyra, Galatia, 1402. The story of his being carried about in a cage by Timur is improbable; but Bajazet died in 1409, in Timur's camp, in Caramania. His successor was Soilman I. Research Bajazet I
The Dorians were one of the four great branches of the Greek nation who migrated from Thessaly southwards, settling for a time in the mountainous district of Doris in Northern Greece and finally in Peloponnesus. Their migration to the latter was said to have taken place in 1104 BC; and as among their leaders were certain descendants of Hercules (or Heracles), it was known as the return of the Heraclidae. The Dorians ruled in Sparta with great renown as a strong and warlike people, though less cultivated than the other Greeks in arts and letters. Their laws were severe and rigid, as typified in the codes of the great Doric legislators Minos and Lycurgus. The Doric dialect was characterized by its broadness and hardness, yet on account of its venerable and antique style was often used in solemn odes and choruses. Research Dorians
Heliodorus was a Greek romance writer. He was born at Emesa, in Syria, in the 4th century. Though of the family of priests of the Syrian god of the Sun, he became a Christian, and Bishop of Tricca in Thessaly. His youthful work, AEthiopica, or the Loves of Theagenes and Charicleia, is a tale of adventure in poetical prose, with an almost epictone. It is, however, sometimes asserted that Heliodorus, the romance-writer, was a Neo-Pythagorean sophist of the 3rd century, erroneously confounded with the bishop. Research Heliodorus
Hippocrates was a Greek doctor. He was born in 460 BC on the island of Cos and died in 370 BC. He established medicine as a science. Besides practising and teaching his profession at home he travelled on the continent of Greece, and died at an advanced age at Larissa, in Thessaly. His writings, which were early celebrated, became the nucleus of a collection of medical treatises by a number of authors of different places and periods, which werelong attributed to him, and still bear his name. The best edition is that of Littre. Among his genuine writings are the first and third books on epidemics; the aphorisms; on diet in acute diseases; on air, waters, and localities; on prognostics; on wounds of the head. Hippocrates was one of the first to insist on the importance of diet and regimen in disease. He had remarkable skill in diagnosis, practised auscultation, and taught the doctrine of 'critical days.' Research Hippocrates
In Greek mythology, Achaeus was a son of Xuthus and Creusa. He returned to Thessaly and recovered the dominions of which his father had been deprived. Research Achaeus
In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greek hero. He is the chief character in Homer's Iliad. His father was Peleus, ruler of Phthia in Thessaly, his mother the sea-goddess Thetis. When only six years of age he was able to overcome lions and bears. His guardian, Cheiron the Centaur, having declared that Troy could not be taken without his aid, his mother, fearing for his safety, disguised him as a girl, and introduced him among the daughters of Lycomedes of Scyros. Her desire for his safety made her also try to make him invulnerable when a child by anointing him with ambrosia, and again by dipping him in the river Styx, from which he came out proof against wounds, all but the heel, by which she held him.
His place of concealment was discovered by Odysseus (Ulysses), and he promised his assistance to the Greeks against Troy. Accompanied by his close friend, Patroclus, he joined the expedition with a body of followers (Myrmidons) in fifty ships, and occupied nine years in raids upon the towns neighbouring to Troy, after which the siege proper commenced. On being deprived of his prize, the maiden Briseis, by Agamemnon, he refused to take any further part in the war, and
disaster attended the Greeks.
Patroclus now persuaded Achilles to allow him to lead the Myrmidons to battle dressed in his armour, and he having been slain by Hector, Achilles vowed revenge on the Trojans, and forgot his anger against the Greeks. He attacked the Trojans and drove them back to their walls, slaying them in great numbers, chased Hector, who fled before him three times round the walls of Troy, slew him, and dragged his body at his chariot-wheels, but afterwards gave it up to Priam, who came in person to beg for it. He then performed the funeral rites of Patroclus, with which the Iliad closes. He was killed in a battle at the Scasan Gate of Troy by an arrow from the bow of Paris which struck his vulnerable heel. In discussions on the origin of the Homeric poems the term Achilleid is often applied to those books (i. viii. and xi.-xxii.) of the Iliad in which Achilles is prominent, and which some suppose to have formed the original nucleus of the poem. Research Achilles
In Greek mythology, Admetus was the king of Pherae in Thessaly, and the husband of Alcestis, who gave signal proof of her love by consenting to die in order that her husband may live. Research Admetus
In Greek mythology, Helle was the daughter of Athamas, King of Thessaly, and sister of Phryxes. With her brother she ran away from Ino, their cruel stepmother, on a ram with a Golden Fleece. Helle fell into the sea and drowned, thus giving her name to the Hellespont. Research Helle
In Greek mythology, Ixion was the son of Phlegyas and King of the Lapithae in Thessaly who was punished for his wickedness by being tied to a perpetually revolving wheel of fire. Research Ixion
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Achaeans
