ACHIACHARUS  , a name occurring in the

book of Tobit (i . 21 f.) as that of a nephew of Tobit and an official at the court of Esarhaddon at Nineveh . There are references in Rumanian, Slavonic, Armenian, Arabic and Syriac literature to a legend, of which the hero is Ahikar (for Armenian, Arabic and Syriac, see The Story of Ahikar, F . C . Conybeare, Rendel Harris and Agnes Lewis, Camb . 1898), and it was pointed out by George Hoffmann in 188o that this Ahikar and the Achiacharus of Tobit are identical . It has been contended that there are traces of the legend even in the New Testament, and there is a striking similarity between it and the Life of Aesop by Maximus Planudes (ch. xxiii.-xxxii.) . An eastern sage Achaicarus is mentioned by Strabo . It would seem, therefore, that the legend was undoubtedly oriental in origin, though the relationship of the various versions can scarcely be recovered . See the Jewish Encyclopaedia and the Encyclopaedia Biblica; also M . R . James in The Guardian, Feb .

2, 1898, p . 163 f .