Map of the Roman Empire - Achaea

Achaea
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Achaea Roman Province. In the Bible (Acts 18.2; Cor. 9.2) the name Achaea refers to the churches of the province.

Acts 18 : 2 - And found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, lately come from Italy, with his wife Priscilla; (because that Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome:) and came unto them.

Cor. 9:2 - If I be not an apostle unto others, yet doubtless I am to you: for the seal of mine apostleship are ye in the Lord.

Achaea (Aχαΐα) The Roman province, which included Peloponnesus and northern Greece south of Thessaly. It was formed on the dissolution of the Achaean League (q.v.) in B.C. 146, and hence derived its name. - Harry Thurston Peck. Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. New York. Harper and Brothers. 1898.

Achaea
ACHA�IA
ACHA�IA (Aχα̈ΐα, Ion. Aχαιΐη: Eth. Aχαιός, Achaeus, Achīvus, fem. and ad j. Aχαιάς, Achāias, Achāis: Adj. Aχαϊκός, Achāicus, Achāiius). ACHAIA the Roman province, including the whole of Peloponnesus and the greater part of Hellas proper with the adjacent islands. The time, however, at which this country was reduced to the form of a Roman province, as well as its exact limits, are open to much discussion. It is usually stated by modern writers that the province was formed on the conquest of the Achaeans in B.C. 146; but there are several reasons for questioning this statement. In the first place it is not stated by any ancient writer that Greece was formed into a province at this time. The silence of Polybius on the subject would be conclusive, if we possessed entire that part of his history which related the conquest of the Achaeans; but in the existing fragments of that portion of his work, there is no allusion to the establishment of a Roman province, although we find mention of various regulations adopted by the Romans for the consolidation of their power. 2. Many of these regulations would have been unnecessary if a provincial government had been established. Thus we are told that the government of each city was placed in the hands of the wealthy, and that all federal assemblies were abolished. Through the influence of Polybius the federal assemblies were afterwards allowed to be held, and some of the more stringent regulations were repealed. (Pol. 40.8--10 ; Paus. 7.16.10.) The re-establishment of these ancient forms appears to have been described by the Romans as a restoration of liberty to Greece. Thus we find in an inscription discovered at Dyme mention of ἡ ἀποδεδομένη κατὰ κοινὸν τοῖς Ἕλλησιν ἐλευθερία, and also of ἡ ἀποδοθεῖσα τοῖς Ἀχαίοις ὑπὸ Π̓ωμαίων πολὶτεια, language which could not have been used if the Roman jurisdiction had been introduced into the country. (B�ckh, Corp. Inscript. No. 1543; comp. Thirlwall, vol. viii. p. 458.) 3. We are expressly told by Plutarch (Plut. Cim. 2), that in the time of Lucullus the Romans had not yet begun to send praetors into Greece (οὔπω εἰς τὴν Ἑλλάδα Ῥωμαῖοι στρατηγοὺς διεπέμποντο; and that disputes in the country were referred to the decision of the governor of Macedonia. There is the less reason for questioning this statement, since it is in accordance with the description of the proceedings of L. Piso, when governor of Macedonia, who is represented as plundering the countries of southern Greece, and exercising sovereignty over them, which he could hardly have done, if they had been subject to a provincial administration of their own. (Cic. c. Pis. 40) It is probable that the south of Greece was first made a separate province by Julius Caesar; since the first governor of the province of whom any mention is made (as far as we are aware) was Serv. Sulpicius, and he was appointed to this office by Caesar; (Cic. Fam. 6.6. 10）

In the division of the provinces made by Augustus, the whole of Greece was divided into the provinces of Achaia, Macedonia, and Epeirus, the latter of which formed part of Illyris. Achaia was one of the provinces assigned to the senate and was governed by a proconsul. (Strab. p. 840; D. C. 53.12.) Tiberius in the second year of his reign (A. D. 16) took it away from the senate and made it an imperial province (Tac. Ann.. 1.76), but Claudius gave it back again to the senate (Suet. Clad. 25). In the reign of this emperor Corinth was the residence of the proconsul, and it was here that the Apostle Paul was brought before Junius Gallio as proconsul of Achaia. (Acta Apost. 7.12.) Nero abolished the province of Achaia, and gave the Greeks their liberty; but Vespasian again established the provincial government and compelled the Greeks to pay a yearly tribute. (Paus. 7.17. � � 3,4; Suet. Vesp. 8.)

The boundaries between the provinces of Macedonia, Epeirus, and Achaia, are difficult to determine. Strabo (p. 840), in his enumeration of the provinces of the Roman empire, says: Ἑβδόμην Ἀχα̈́αν μέχρι Θετταλίας καὶ Αἰτωλῶν καὶ Ἀκαρνάνων, καί τινων Ἠπειρωτικῶν ἐθνῶν, ὅσα τῇ Μ̣̣εδονίᾳ προσώρισται. �The seventh(province)is Achaia, up to Thessaly and the Aetolians and Acarnanians and some Epeirot tribes, which border upon Macedonia.� Most modem writers understand μέχρι as inclusive, and consequently make Achaia include Thessaly, [1.18] Aetolia, and Acarnania. Their interpretation is confirmed by a passage in Tacitus, in which Nicopolis in the south of Epeirus is called by Tacitus ((Ann. 2.53) a city of Achaia; but too much stress must not be laid upon this passage, as Tacitus may only have used Achaia in its widest signification as equivalent to Greece. If μέχρι is not inclusive, Thessaly, Aetolia, and Acarnania must be assigned either wholly to Macedonia, or partly to Macedonia and partly to Epeirus. Ptolemy (3.2, seq.), in his division of Greece, assigns Thessaly to Macedonia, Acarnania to Epeirus, and Aetolia to Achaia; and it is probable that this represents the political division of the country at the time at which he lived (A.D. 150). Achaia continued to be a Roman province governed by proconsuls down to the time of Justinian. (Kruse, Hellas,, vol. i. p. 573.) - Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) William Smith, LLD, Ed.