Aechmalotarcha

Aechmalotarcha, or Æchmalotarcha, in antiquity, is a Greek term signifying the chief or leader of captives.

The Jews who refused to return with Zerubbabel to Jerusalem after the Babylonian Captivity created an "Æchmalotarcha" to govern them. The people themselves did not refer to him by that title, since they spoke Hebrew or Chaldee, not Greek. Origen and others, who wrote in Greek, rendered the Hebrew name ראש גלות ("Rosh galut", or ריש גלותא,"Reish galuta" in Aramaic), meaning "head of the exile" or "exilarch".

However, Jews must have had officers of this kind before the return from Babylon; for example, in the Apocryphal story of Susannah, the two elders who condemned her were Æchmalotarchæ that year.