Hittites and Anatolian Ethnic Diversity 133(The Lycian language, attested from the late sixth to the late fourth centuryBC,ispre-
served in ca. 200 inscriptions on rock monuments, mainly tombs, and in coin legends and
a few graffiti.) However, particularly from the late fifth century onward, Greeks settled
in the country in increasing numbers, to the point where the Roman statesman Cicero,
in the first centuryBC, called the Lycians “a Greek people” (Verrine Orations4.10.21).
Already in the Late Bronze Age, a number of Greeks had settled in Anatolia,
mainly on its western coast, particularly in and around the city of Miletos. Called
Millawanda/Milawata in Hittite texts, Miletos lay on the southern Aegean coast
near the mouth of the Maeander River. Archaeology indicates that many cities along
Anatolia’s western and southern coasts had trading links with the Late Bronze Age
Greek/Mycenaean world. However, Miletos alone provides clear evidence of a Myce-
naean settlement, particularly from the late fourteenth through much of the thirteenth
century (see Niemeier 2005). From Hittite texts, we learn that a Mycenaean king
held sovereignty over Millawanda/Miletos in this period, apparently using the city
as a base for the extension of his influence through parts of the western Anatolian
hinterland—into territories over which the Hittites claimed control—largely by means
of local anti-Hittite agents. This is revealed in a small, often fragmentary, group of
Hittite documents known as the Ahhiyawa texts (Beckman, Bryce, and Cline 2011),
which include a number of letters, some exchanged between the Hittite king and his
Mycenaean counterpart (most notably, the so-called “Tawagalawa letter”; translation by
Beckman et al. 2011: 101–19). Almost all scholars agree that “Ahhiyawa” is the Hittite
way of referring to the contemporary Mycenaean world, equating “Ahhiyawa” with
“Achaia,” and noting that “Achaian” is one of three names that Homer uses for the
Greeks. Almost certainly, the name has a Greek Bronze Age pedigree. Collectively, the
Ahhiyawa texts indicate that Mycenaean interests in western Anatolia were political and
military as well as commercial. It is likely that this region attracted significant numbers
of Greek settlers, including traders, craftsmen, soldiers, bureaucrats, and farmers, during
the period of Mycenaean control over a relatively small but significant slice of western
Anatolian territory.
This control was lost before the end of the thirteenth century, probably in the
reign of the Hittite king Tudhaliya IV (ca. 1237–1209). Its loss must have resulted
in significant shrinkage in the region’s Greek population. However, some Greeks
undoubtedly stayed on, and others may have come to the region as freebooters or
mercenaries in search of foreign hire in the increasingly unstable last years of the Hittite
Empire. A hint of this is provided in letters written by a Hittite king, almost certainly
Tudhaliya, and one of his officials, Penti-Sharruma, to Ammurapi, king of Ugarit (see
Lackenbacher and Malbran-Labat 2005). The letters indicate that a group of persons
called the Hiyawa-men were then located in Lukka. We can identify these persons as
Ahhiyawans—Achaian/Mycenaean Greeks. Both letters reprimand Ammurapi for failing
to send certain supplies to the Hiyawa-Men, and instruct him to dispatch them by
ship without delay. The logogram “PAD.MEŠ” that designates these supplies almost
certainly refers to metal ingots (thus, Singer 2006: 252–8) whose nature is not specified.
They may have consisted of copper and tin, to be turned into bronze weapons by their
recipients, or of silver or gold, if they were to be handed over as payment for services
rendered or to be rendered. Either way, there is little doubt that this group of Greeks in
Lukka were mercenaries in the Hittite king’s service.