An Atlantic Achaean league?

Homer uses the term Achaeans as a generic term for Greeks throughout the Iliad.

The Azorean Achadas

In the eastern part of the island of Pico of the Azores, which has been identified as the Homeric Same , next to Homeric Ithaca, there is a 30km-long volcanic plateau called “ Planalto da Achada ”, which means “Plateau Achada”.

As a geographical term, “Achada” means “flat earth” and derives from the word “Achanada” which is first encountered in the work Saudades da Terra by the priest Gaspar Frutuoso.

Given this meaning of the term, the phrase “Planalto da Achada” seems a redundancy, as it would translate to the “plateau of flat land”.

This leads to the possibility that the term Achada refers to another characteristic of the area rather than to its flat topography. And this, in turn, brings up the possibility that the term Achada is a corruption of “Achaea” (i.e. “the land of Achaeans”), so the name “Achada Plateau” would mean the “plateau inhabited by Achaeans”.

This interpretation supports (and is supported by) the theory that the middle Azorean island cluster is the one around Homeric Ithaca , which was inhabited by Achaeans.

The Macaronesian Achadas/

Interestingly, the place name Achada is very common all over the Portuguese Macaronesia, i.e. in the archipelagos of the Azores , Madeira and Cape Verde .

Verazzano's Archadia

In 1524 AD, the Florentine Giovanni Verrazzano during his exploration mission along the east coast of America on behalf of the king of France Francis I, named the land that he reached, “Archadia”, on the account of the beauty of the trees, as he notes in handwriting.

The name, was presumably coined after the title of a very popular novel of the 16 th century, “Arcadia” , a love story of a shepherd that left Naples to live in Arcadia.

But, is this so?

Archadia, written with an “h”, is phonetically close to “Achaea”, the land of Achaeans, and this is supported by the following:

• It is very close to the area that Odysseus met the Cicones on his trip back from Troy. Thus, the area was already known and probably inhabited by Achaeans.
• In 1608 the British explorer John Smith while mapping for the first time the area of today's Chesapeake Bay, lists the place names of Naus and Nautaquack, which bear clear resonance with the Greek word ναύς (vessel) and ναύτης (mariner), revealing roots of Greek-speaking people in the area.

So, the possibility that Archadia was named after the name of the inhabitants of the place, Achaeans, with whom Verazzano's crew got into contact, cannot be ruled out.

From Archadia to Arcadia

In various early maps of the American coastline, the toponym Larcadia is depicted which although norther, is attributed to the original Verazzano's, Archadia.

Acadia, a name that has been used for nearly 400 years in the area of the Maritime Provinces of Canada , is supposed to come from Arcadia by omission of the “r”, while another theory supports that it originates in the word “akade” which means “place” in the language of the native Mi'kmaq indian tribe.

Acadia after Achaea?

But, it is also possible that Acadia, is a distorted form of Achaea, since Achaeans probably dominated the area after their victory over Troy in the Trojan war.

And this is also aligned with the testimony of Odysseus that Crete within the wine-dark sea is inhabited by Achaeans among other tribes.

An Atlantic Achaean league?

Thus, the possibility that all these toponyms are remnants of an Achaean league that once dominated the Atlantic, cannot be neglected.