A 7 Abazians (Abazins; Abaza; Apswa; and 19th centuries the Russian SLAVS and TURKS competed for the region, and many Ashvy) ABAZIANS Abazians were relocated to Russia and Turkey. The Abazians are a Caucasic-speaking people, location: who live for the most part in the northwestern Many SLAVS settled in their homeland. The tra- ditional Abazian way of life, raising livestock North Caucasus in south- Caucasus region of southwestern Russia. The western Russia majority inhabit the foothills along the Big and (sheep, cattle, and horses, the latter for which Little Zelenchuk, Kuban, and Kuma Rivers in they were renowned) in the highlands and cul- time period: Second millennium B.C.E. the Karachay-Cherkessia Republic, but some tivating the lowlands (originally millet, then to present have settled in neighboring regions as well. maize), was disrupted. Their language is classified as part of the In the 20th century the Abazians came ancestry: North-West (Abkhazo-Adygheian) branch of under further pressure. During the civil war Caucasian that followed the Soviet rise to power, North Caucasic and closely related to the lan- language: Abazians fought for both the Red Guards and guage of the Abkhazians (Abkhaz; Absua), Abazin (Caucasic) most of whom live to the south in the Asian the White Guards. During the existence of the nation of Georgia. Abazin, as the language is Soviet Union (USSR), the Abazians faced fur- b known, is divided into two dialects correspon- ther deportations, collectivization, and the ding to two kinship communities, Tapanta and suppression of traditional customs and their Shkaraua. Islamic religion. Like the Abkhazians the Abazians are See also RUSSIANS: NATIONALITY. descended from proto-Abkhaz tribes, who, possibly as early as the second millennium B.C.E., inhabited lands near the Black Sea. By Abricantes (Abricanti; Abricantui) the ninth century C.E. they had separated into The Abricantes are classified as a Celtic tribe. the two distinct tribes, Tapanta and Shkaraua. They lived in Gaul around present-day In the 13th century the Tapanta moved south- Avranches in northwestern France and are dis- ward to the northern Caucasus, followed by cussed as CELTS or GAULS. The ROMANS referred the Shkaraua the next century, although some to them along with other tribes as Armoricans, of the Shkaraua were assimilated by that is, tribes living between the Seine and Abkhazians and other CAUCASIANS known as Loire on or near the Atlantic Ocean in the CIRCASSIANS. The Abazians reached their peak region of Armorica (roughly present-day of power in the 15th and 16th centuries but Brittany and eastern Normandy), occupied by were subject to the Kabardians, a subgroup of forces under Julius Caesar in 55 B.C.E. Legedia the Circassians in the 17th century. In the 18th on the site of Avranches became a capital of a 1 2 Abrincatui civitas (self-governed region) in Roman Gaul; before the time of the Trojan War. Various Avranches takes its name from the tribal name. groups of Indo-European speakers first ACHAEANS appeared in Greece perhaps as early as the location: fourth millennium B.C.E., long before this time. Southern Greece; Abrincatui See AMBIBARII. From at least 1600 B.C.E. peoples in southern Cycladic Islands; Cyprus; Greece were highly influenced by the MINOANS Asia Minor on Crete. By the end of the Greek Dark Ages, Abrodrites See OBODRITES. time period: from the demise of Mycenaean civilization to 12th century to 146 B.C.E. about the eighth century B.C.E., a people living ancestry: Achaeans (Achaioi) in a region called Achaea in the northern Hellenic The name Achaeans appears in the epic poem Peloponnese spoke a dialect, called Arcado- Cypriot, that resembled Mycenaean Greek language: the Iliad—presumably written by the poet more than any other in Greece. Achaean/Mycenaean Homer of the ninth or eighth century B.C.E.— (Greek); then perhaps in reference to one group of the GREEKS who other Greek dialects, were said to have sacked Troy, an event that ORIGINS such as Arcadian, may have occurred in 1184 B.C.E. or a century It is debated as to whether the Achaeans were Cypriot, and Attic earlier. Before archaeological discoveries of the the direct ancestors of the three main ethnic 20th century that dramatically realigned the divisions of the later Greeks, the AEOLIANS, b chronology of Greek prehistory, it was assumed IONIANS,and DORIANS, or whether these repre- the Achaeans were the first Hellenic people, sent the product of new Indo-European migra- that is, the first of the ancient Greeks who tions into Greece. After the mysterious collapse spoke Greek. It is now known that Indo- of the Mycenaean civilization in the 13th centu- European speakers of an early form of Greek ry B.C.E. there is a long dark period in Greece, had been in Greece for well over 1,000 years during which writing was lost, cities vanished, before the Trojan War. This period saw the rise, and civilization stagnated or went into retreat. In flowering, and collapse of an entire civilization, the Iliad by Homer from the ninth or eighth cen- of which Homer and later Greeks of the classi- tury B.C.E., based on oral histories dating from cal period knew very little—that of the these earlier Greek Dark Ages, the Achaeans are MYCENAEANS—that lasted for almost 400 years said to be the principal Greeks who sacked Troy (1600–1200 B.C.E.). Thus is makes little sense (Homer also mentions Argives—people from to apply the name Achaean to people much Argos—and Danaans as taking part). By the beginning of the Archaic period in 750 B.C.E., however, only a small group of Greeks on the Achaeans time line Peloponnese called themselves Achaeans; they lived in a small area of the northern B.C.E. Peloponnese, bordered on one side by high 12th century Movement of warrior groups with non-Mycenaean culture mountains and on the other by the Gulf of (possibly people later called Achaeans) across Aegean Sea and Greek Corinth. mainland in wake of collapse of Mycenaean civilization The origin of the Achaeans is clouded with uncertainty due to a lack of historical eighth century Greeks rise out of Dark Ages, begin to found city-states, redis- evidence from the Greek Dark Ages and the cover writing with Phoenician alphabet; Homeric poems mention Achaeans as principal Greeks. period before it and a relatively incomplete archaeological record (in part caused by the seventh century First Achaean League is founded in Achaea; Achaeans from unscientific, treasure-hunting style of 19th- Patras take part in a migration to Sicily; poems of Hesiod detail origin century excavators of Greek sites, particularly myth of Hellenes. those of the Mycenaeans). It has also been fourth century First Achaean League dissolves. somewhat controversial because of the associ- 336–335 Alexander the Great unites Greece by conquest. ation of the Hellenes with the roots of Western culture. For this reason the ancestors 280 Second Achaean League is founded to oppose Macedonian conquerors. of the Hellenes were avidly sought by schol- 247 Achaean League in strife with Sparta; Macedonians invited back to ars, on the assumption that the progenitors of help them; Macedonians regain control. so great a race as the Greeks, the first bearers 198 Achaean League sides with Rome against Macedonia; granted control of Western civilization, must be very special. of nearly all the Peloponnese. The early attempts to understand their origin 146 Romans conquer Achaea, making it a Roman province. resorted to interpreting the mythical story of the sons of Hellen, to whom Greece was Achaeans 3 parceled out as their inheritance, and who point in its history, but evidence for this before migrated with their people throughout historical times (when the CELTS invaded, for Greece, warring and allying among them- example)—when it happened and whence they selves, until they finally produced the ethnic might have come—is lacking at present. divisions found during the Archaic period. At that time these myths found their voice in the LANGUAGE Boeotian poet Hesiod, who probably lived in The Achaeans spoke perhaps the earliest form the eighth century B.C.E. of Greek, referred to as Achaean. It is thought These myths seemed to fit in well with to be related to Mycenaean. Later in their his- 19th-century linguistic analysis of the origins tory some among them probably spoke other of Greek as an Indo-European tongue. In this Greek dialects, depending on location, such as interpretation the Achaeans were a tall, fair- Arcado-Cypriot (Arcadian and Cypriot) and skinned people who migrated from central Attic. Europe and encountered a shorter dark- skinned Mediterranean people, related to the HISTORY Minoans of Crete. By a process of conquest, Around 1450 B.C.E. the Minoan civilization col- these people came to inhabit Greece sometime lapsed, and the Mycenaean civilization that had between 1600 and 1500 B.C.E. emerged on Greece during the Minoan New What archaeological evidence there is, Palace period (from 1600 B.C.E.) took over the however, combined with the presence of a large Minoan trading network in the Aegean and number of non-Indo-European place-names eastern Mediterranean. This civilization was and roots in Greek, indicates that intermixing, located primarily on the Peloponnese and and not conquest, was the rule. Moreover, other called Mycenaean after the city of Mycenae, analyses place the appearance of Indo-European which was excavated in the 19th century, pro- speakers in Greece much earlier, as far back as viding the first glimpses of the riches of this the fourth millennium B.C.E., and paint the pic- second Aegean civilization.