Achaia

Achaia, a small Greek district lying along the northern coast of the Peloponnus. Achaia forms, along with Elis, a department in the modern kingdom, and its chief town is Patras (q.v.).—As the Achaians (Achæans) were the ruling people of the Peloponnus in heroic times, Homer speaks of the Greeks generally as Achaioi. Their twelve little towns formed a confederacy, renewed in 281 B.C., and subsequently extended, under the name of the Achæan League, throughout Greece, until 146 B.C., when Greek liberty fell under the power of Rome.