Achaemenes ( ; ; ) was the progenitor (apical ancestor) of the Achaemenid dynasty of rulers of Persia.
Other than his role as an apical ancestor, nothing is known of his life or actions. It is quite possible that Achaemenes was only the mythical ancestor of the Persis royal house, but if Achaemenes was a historical person, he would have lived around the end of the 8th century and the beginning of the 7th century BC.[.]
Name
The name used in European languages ( (
Achaiménēs), ) ultimately derives from
Old Persian Haxāmaniš (𐏃𐎧𐎠𐎶𐎴𐎡𐏁), as found together with
Elamite 𒄩𒀝𒋡𒉽𒉡𒆜 (
Ha-ak-ka-man-nu-iš or
Hâkamannuiš) and Akkadian 𒀀𒄩𒈠𒉌𒅖𒀪 (
A-ḫa-ma-ni-iš-ʾ) in the non-contemporaneous trilingual Behistun Inscription of
Darius I. The Old Persian proper name is traditionally derived from
haxā- "friend" and
manah "thinking power", yielding "having a friend's mind."
A more recent interpretation reads
haxā- as "follower", giving "characterized by a follower's spirit."
[.] The name is spelled هخامنش (
Haxâmaneš) in
Persian language.
Historicity
In the Behistun inscription (
c. 520 BC),
Darius I portrays Achaemenes as the father of
Teispes, ancestor of
Cyrus II (Cyrus the Great) and
Darius I.
The mid-5th century BC
Histories (7.11) of Herodotus has essentially the same story, but fuses two parallel lines of descent from "Teispes son of Achaemenes". Beyond such brief mentions of the name, nothing is known of the figure behind it, neither from indigenous sources nor from historiographic ones. It may be that Achaemenes was just a mythical ancestor, not a historical one.
[Stephen Bourke (ed.) The Middle East: The Cradle of Civilization Revealed p. 216] Many scholars believe he was a ruler of
Parsua, a vassal state of the
Medes, and that from there he led armies against the
king
Sennacherib at the Battle of Halule in 681 BC.
Behistun inscription
It may be that the Behistun inscription's claim of descent from Achaemenes was an invention of Darius I, in order to justify the latter's seizure of the throne. Cyrus II does not mention Achaemenes at all in the detailed genealogy given in the
Cyrus cylinder.
While the patronym
haxāmanišiya—"of the Achaemenes"—does appear in an inscription at
Pasargadae attributed to Cyrus II, this inscription may have been written on the order of Darius I after Cyrus' death.
[Bruce Lincoln. Religion, empire, and torture: the case of Achaemenian Persia, 2007, University of Chicago Press, Page 4–5] As such, Achaemenes could be a retrograde creation of Darius the Great,
made in order to legitimize a dynastic relationship to Cyrus the Great. Darius certainly had much to gain in having an ancestor shared by Cyrus and himself, and may have felt the need for a stronger connection than that provided by his subsequent marriage to Cyrus' daughter
Atossa.
Greek writers
The Greek writers of antiquity preserve several legends surrounding the figure:
[.] The Pseudo-Platonic dialogue
First Alcibiades (120e), written in the late 4th-century BC, portrays Achaemenes as the hero-founder of the Persái in the same way that the Greeks are descended from
Heracles, and that both Achaemenes and Hercules were descendants of
Perseus, son of
Zeus. Another version of the tale makes Achaemenes the son of
Aegeus, yet another founder-hero of legend. The 3rd-century Aelianus (
De nat. anim. 12.21) says Achaemenes was bred by an eagle.
See also
