Archias of Corinth
Corinthian aristocrat who founded Syracuse after a Delphic oracle.
Archias (Ἀρχίας) was an 8th-century BC Corinthian aristocrat who, after a serious dispute in his native city, followed instructions from the Oracle of Delphi to lead a group of colonists to southern Italy. He founded the city of Syracuse, an event traditionally dated to around 756 BC or 733 BC.
Quick Facts
- Name
- Archias (Ἀρχίας)
- Origin
- Corinth
- Century
- 8th century BC
- Founded
- Syracuse
- Foundation dates
- c. 756 BC or 733 BC
- Father
- Euagetes (according to the Parian Marble)
- Killed by
- Telephos
Facts from the source article.
Ancient accounts
Archias had to leave Corinth after a young man named Actaeon died because of him. Archias was in love with Actaeon and tried to take him from his father Melissus’s home; during the struggle Actaeon was killed. Melissus could not get justice for his son, so he killed himself and cursed the Corinthians in Poseidon’s name. A plague then hit Corinth, and the oracle at Delphi told Archias he must go into exile. Two different oracles about the founding of Syracuse survive from ancient times. One says the god gave Archias and Myscellus, who founded Croton, a choice: Archias picked wealth and founded Syracuse, while Myscellus picked health and founded Croton. Pausanias recorded another oracle, but it does not mention Myscellus or Croton. In Syracuse, Archias had two daughters. He was later killed in Sicily by his lover Telephos.
Family and origin
The Parian Marble names Archias as the son of Euagetes. Most modern scholars, following Edward Augustus Freeman, regard Archias as a member of the Bacchiad noble family, though this affiliation is not explicitly stated in ancient sources. A minority of scholars, relying on a passage of the Parian Marble describing Archias as 'tenth from Temenus', have argued for an Argive origin. Felix Jacoby challenged this interpretation, rejecting the wording as erroneous and proposing an emendation to 'eleventh from Heracles', which has been widely accepted. Andreas Morakis has questioned the Bacchiadic attribution itself, arguing that the foundation was not a state-led Bacchiadic enterprise but an expedition by Archias as a Heracleid aristocrat outside the Bacchiads.
Interpretations
The motif of Actaeon's abduction by Archias echoes practices attested in archaic aristocratic and military Greek society, such as the Cretan agela described by Strabo citing Ephorus, which may reflect a custom once practised in early Corinth. The name Telephos evokes the mythical hero, son of Herakles, who in myth was suckled by a doe, killed his uncle during a hunt, and was driven into exile by an oracle, eventually finding purification in Mysia. This narrative reproduces the same pattern found in the story of Archias, linking homicide, expulsion mandated by an oracle, and ritual purification.
Historicity
The story of Archias of Corinth and the founding of Syracuse is more myth than history, according to the surviving accounts. The colony’s establishment is tied to Archias’s guilt over Actaeon, a typical mythic explanation for such foundations. The focus on the founder likely came later, when colonies needed a heroic origin story to boost their prestige. Modern scholars generally dismiss these foundation tales as historically unreliable, seeing them as late inventions shaped by ideology or propaganda. However, the scholar Antonella Carfora points out that Archias appears in an early archaic poem. A fragment from the 7th-century BC poet Archilochus, quoted by Athenaeus, describes a man named Aithiops who joined Archias’s expedition to Sicily and traded his allotted land for a honey cake. Archilochus names Archias as the expedition’s leader and directly links him to Syracuse’s founding. This is the earliest known reference to the city’s foundation, showing Archias was already a known figure in the first half of the 7th century BC. Carfora argues that while the ancient tradition around Archias is mythical, it still contains archaic elements.
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