Achaea (Roman province)

Achaea was a province of the Roman Empire. The region was conquered 146 BC by the Romans and first belonged to the province of Macedonia. Under Augustus Achaea was set up in the Senate meeting of 13 January 27 BC as an independent senatorial province. It included the Peloponnese peninsula in Greece. The area of the new colony included almost the entire Greek mainland with a majority of the islands:

• Central Greece
• Euboea
• Peloponnese
• Epirus
• Acarnania
• Ionian Islands
• Aetolia
• Thessaly
• Sporades
• Cyclades Amorgos and without Astypalia

Manages the province was of a proconsul per praetore, which had its seat in the Colonia Laus Iulia Corinthus, the Roman colony founded in the same place after the destruction of Corinth. Free cities were Athens and Sparta, and the location in Acarnania colony of Nicopolis, who had founded Augustus to commemorate the Battle of Actium and the later capital of the province of Epirus was, as Epirus with parts separated Akarnania and the Ionian Islands of Achaea and to self- province was (117 before ). Other colonies were Dyme, Patrae and Buthrotum.

15 AD Achaea was 44 they put under the Emperor Tiberius to the imperial province until Emperor Claudius again under senatorial control. Under Antoninus Pius Thessaly and Fthiotida were re- allocated to the province of Macedonia. When Diocletian's imperial reform the Cyclades except Skyros, and Lemnos Imbros part of the newly formed provincia insularum were.

Since 395 Achaea was considered part of the Eastern Roman Empire. The territory of the Byzantine theme Hellas agreed to on the western part of the Achaea.

In the Republican period, Greece had suffered greatly, especially under the system of Roman tax farming. It had been closed from the desolation of many smaller poleis and villages that even the emperor no prosperity for Greece did - at least not a quick economic recovery. This view neglected the relative growth of the larger cities (Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Patrae, Elis, Argos, Tegea, Gythion, Hermione, Eleusis, Megara ), which extended and their inhabitants were more numerous than in classical times. Also, the agricultural structure was transformed by numerous villae rusticae and the emergence of large latifundia the system ( as was half Attica in possession of Herodes Atticus ).

Exports were especially wine from the northern Peloponnese, honey and olive oil from Attica and marble from Thessaly, Attica, the Peloponnese and the islands of Evia, Skyros, Naxos and Paros ( from here came the famous Parian marble). Of arts and crafts products were manufactured in Athens and Patrae was the center of the textile trade. From here the wool Arcadian sheep was processed and linen from Elis to fine fabric ( βύσσος ) has been processed. In Gythion the precious purple coloring matter was recovered and marble exported from Laconia.

Another important export item was education: on the one hand visited many Romans the sites of classical Greece as a kind of huge open-air museum, on the other hand Athens was the seat of the Academy and teaching instead of philosophers, where Romans like Cicero heard philosophical, rhetorical and philological lectures. Finally, the attraction of the big games was undiminished: In Corinth every two years continued to be celebrated the Isthmian Games and the Olympic Games were even a Emperor Nero among the participants. Nero was ever a big Philhellene: 67 he proclaimed the freedom of all Greeks. This injunction was indeed repealed by Vespasian again in the year 70, but strictly speaking, was characterized Achaea in this time, no Roman province.