Attarsiya[a] was anAhhiyan (Achaean) warlord who lived around 1400 BC. He is known from a singleHittite text, which recounts his military activities in Western Anatolia andAlasiya. These texts are significant because they provide the earliest textual evidence of Mycenaean Greek involvement in Western Anatolian affairs. Scholars have noted potential connections between his name and that ofAtreus fromGreek mythology.
TheIndictment of Madduwatta describes two incidents involving Attarsiya which occurred in Western Anatolia. In the first incident, Attarsiya attacked an unnamed land and forced the local warlordMadduwatta to flee. Madduwatta found refuge with the Hittite kingTudhaliya I/II who installed him as vassal ruler of Zippasla and the Siyanta River Land, territories which seem to have been located somewhere near theArzawa Lands.[1]
In the second incident, Attarsiya again attacked Madduwatta, this time with an army that allegedly included 100war chariots and 1000 infantry. Attarsiya was initially victorious, though Madduwatta's Hittite backers dispatched an army underKisnapli. TheIndictment of Madduwatta gives a brief description of the battle:[1][2]
Kisnapli went into battle against Attarsiya 100 [chariots and ... infantry] of Attarsiya [drew up for battle]. And they fought. One officer of Attarsiya was killed, and one officer of ours, Zidanza, was killed. Then Attarsiya turned [away(?)] from Madduwatta, and he went off to his own land.[3]
This description has been interpreted as suggesting a duel between the two sides' champions, though it is also possible that only these two casualties were considered worthy of mention.[4] After the battle, Attarsiya returned home and Madduwatta was reinstalled as ruler.[1]
Later on, Attarsiya raided the island ofAlashiya together with Anatolian allies including his former enemy Madduwatta. This attack alarmed the Hittites, who claimed Alashiya as a tributary but lacked the naval resources to directly control it.[5]
Attarsiya is known solely from theIndictment of Madduwatta (CTH 147), a fragmentaryHittite text written around 1380 BC. This document, written on behalf of theHittite kingArnuwanda I, recounts the Hittites' troubled relationship with a restive vassal namedMadduwatta. Attarsiya plays a role in several episodes described in the text.[6][7] When theIndictment of Madduwatta was first translated, it was assigned an erroneous date at the end of the 13th century BC. However, subsequent scholarship showed that it was in fact two centuries older based on archaic characteristics of the texts.[b][8]
The Hittite account of Attarsiya's exploits provide the earliest textual evidence of Mycenaean involvement inAnatolia. These incidents are contemporary with archaeological evidence of growing Mycenaean presence atMiletus, which may have served as Attarsiya's base, as it did for later Mycenaean warlords.[9] The Hittites' growing awareness of the Mycenaeans is attested by roughly contemporary finds fromHattusa including a Mycenaean-style sword seized from a participant in theAssuwa Revolt and a pot sherd decorated with an image that appears to depict a soldier wearing aboar's tusk helmet.[10][11][12] In the decades after Attarsiya, Mycenaean involvement increased, to the point that the Hittite kingHattusili III even addressed the Ahhiyawan king as a peer. However, the Mycenaeans were driven out of Anatolia around 1220 BC, during the reign ofTudhaliya IV.[13][14]
Attarsiya's exploits are also significant for what they reveal about the political structure of the Mycenaean world. WhileLinear B records suggest a number of independent Mycenaean palace-states, one potential reading of theIndictment implies that Attarsiya's army consisted of 100 chariots and 1000 infantry. Since these numbers are greater than any single Mycenaean palace-state could have mustered, some researchers such asJorrit Kelder have argued that Ahhiyawa was an alliance or confederation.[15][16]
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It has been suggested by several scholars that the termAttarsiya might be related to the Greek name "Atreus", borne by amythical king of Mycenae.[17][18] However, scholars have cautioned that even if there is a connection, that does not entail that Attarsiya himself was the basis of the mythical Atreus.[19]
Martin West proposed thatAtreus is a secondary form based on thepatronymicAtreïdēs, which is in turn derived from the Mycenaean *Atrehiās.[19] This could then be derived from a preform *Atresias, *Atersias or *Atarsias, more readily connectable with Attarsiya.[20] According to an alternative view proposed by HittitologistAlbrecht Goetze,Attarsiya could be a possessive adjective, meaning "belonging to Atreus", analogous to the typicalHomeric way of referring toAgamemnon andMenelaus, throughout theIliad.[8]
A further possible link to the grecophone sphere is theLinear B termta-ra-si-ja, well attested in Pylian tablet series JN, a word which means "copper/bronze allotment" or "weight unit of copper/bronze", or something similar, applied to metalworkers. On the Pylos JN 415 tablet there is also found a nouna-ta-ra-si-jo, meaning "thosewithout copper/bronze". The context in whichta-ra-si-ja occurs during the Late Helladic period suggests that those who produced or worked with the allocated raw materials were a large work force and the work was of a low-paid status.[21] Worth noting is the independence ofa-ta-ra-si-jo smiths from allotments accordedta-ra-si-ja smiths. The opposites occur often together. Pylian tablet JN 389 summarizes the amount of metal distributed to ata-ra-si-ja. Eleven smiths are named to receive an allotment and are then referred to collectively as a group, given an extra issue, ase-pi-da-to, that has been linked to Greek δατέομαι from the root δαίω (daíō, "to divide, share") – that is,epi- 'after' +dastoi, in Mycenean Greek.[22] It is followed a few lines down on the tablet bya-ta-ra-si-jo, and again named persons. That there evidently were smiths, many, without an allocation within the system of rationing implies, barring a shortage, that they had other occupations, access to sufficient quantities of copper or bronze to be self-reliant, or, indeed, that the role belonged to a smith recruitment process rather, which is why it was thought necessary to list.
Supposing Attarsiya to have been ana-ta-ra-si-jo, serving as an active (or inactive) smith was not among the activities ascribed to him in the HittiteIndictment of Madduwatta. A Greek amassing a fortune overseas in the bronze business and remembered as Atreus, on the other hand, is conceivable.