Achaemenides

In Virgil's Aeneid Achaemenides is presented as one of Odysseus' crew who was left marooned on Sicily after Odysseus fled the Cyclops Polyphemus. He survives living rough on the island until the Trojans, led by Aeneas during their wanderings after the fall of Troy, find and rescue him and take him to Italy with their company. Virgil's reuse of a name derived from the Persian Achaemenes (rendered as Greek) and interpreted as suggesting 'he who waits with affliction' supplies literary onomastic resonance for the character's plight.

Sources describe Achaemenides as filthy, dirty, and desperate — a castaway living in the woods of Sicily after being left behind following the Polyphemus episode. His appearance in the Aeneid episode is that of a worn, dishevelled survivor who suddenly runs from the woods to the arriving Trojans to beg rescue.

No supernatural powers are attributed. His notable behaviours are mundane human endurance and survival under adverse conditions and, in later Latin treatments, functioning as an eyewitness narrator or informant for episodes of Odysseus' adventures. His narrative role enables poets to portray Aeneas' clemency and to bridge Homeric material with Roman epic themes.