ACHAEAN LEAGUE, a confederation of the towns of Achaea in ancient Greece. Isolated on their narrow strips of plain, these towns were exposed to the raids of pirates from the north of the Corinthian gulf. As a protection against such dangers the earliest league of 12 Achaean cities arose. In the 4th century, we find it fighting in the Theban wars (368-362 B.c.), against Philip (338) and Antipater (33o). Antigonus Gonatas dissolved the league; but by 28o B.C. four towns combined again, and before long the ten surviving cities of Achaea had renewed their federation. Much was due to the statesmanship of Aratus (q.v.), who initiated an expansive policy; in 228 it included Arcadia, Argolis, Corinth and Aegina.
Aratus probably also organized the new federal' constitution. The league embraced city-States which maintained their internal independence and powers of self-government. Only in foreign politics and war was their competence restricted.
The central government was democratic. The legislative powers resided in a popular assembly, meeting at Aegium, in which every member of the league over 3o years of age could speak; each city counted one on a division. Extraordinary as semblies could be convoked in special emergencies. A council of 120 delegates served as a committee for preparing the as sembly's programme. The chief magistracy was the strategic which combined with an unrestricted command in the field a large measure of civil authority and had practically the sole power of introducing measures before the assembly. The ten demiurgoi, who presided over this body, formed a kind of cabinet. Philopoemen (q.v.) transferred the seat of assembly from town to town by rotation, and placed dependent communities on an equal footing with their former suzerains.
The league prescribed uniform standards and coinage; it sum moned contingents, imposed taxes and fined or coerced refractory members.
The first federal wars were against Macedonia, against Antigonus Gonatas and Aetolia and, with Aetolia, against De metrius. A greater danger arose (227-223) from the attacks of Cleomenes III. (q.v.). Owing to Aratus's irresolute generalship the indolence of the burghers and the inadequacy of its troops, the league lost much of its territory. The assembly negotiated with Antigonus Doson, who recovered the lost districts but re tained Corinth for himself (223-221). When Philip V. came to the rescue against the Aetolians he annexed much of the Pelopon nese. Under Philopoemen the league, with a reorganized army, routed the Aetolians (210) and Spartans (207, 201). After their neutrality during the Macedonian War the Roman general, T. Quintius Flamininus, restored their lost possessions, bringing the Peloponnese under Achaean control. In ISO B.C. the league, in defiance of Rome, attacked Sparta. The federal troops were routed near Corinth by L. Mummius Achaicus (146). The Romans now dissolved the league, and took measures to isolate the communities. Augustus instituted an Achaean synod com prising the dependent cities of Peloponnese and central Greece.
The chief defect of the Achaean league lay in its lack of provision for securing efficient armies and regular payment of imposts, and for dealing with disaffected members. It is the glory of the league, however, to have combined city autonomy with an organized central administration, and in this way to have postponed the entire destruction of Greek liberty for over a century. (See ROME : History.) BIBLIOGRAPHY.—E. Freeman, Federal Government (1893) ; A. Holm,Bibliography.—E. Freeman, Federal Government (1893) ; A. Holm, Greek History; L. Whibley, A Companion to Greek Studies (1916). The chief classical authorities are Polybius (esp. ii., iv., v., xxiii. and xxviii.) , who is followed by Livy (xxxii., xxxv., xxxviii., etc.) ; Pausanias vii. 9.