Achaea

A region in the northwestern Peloponnese whose inhabitants were mentioned by Homer as fighting at Troy. They were not unified but shared common citizenship and coinage. Achaea formed a confederacy with other Peloponnesian cities in the Hellenistic period but was taken by Rome in 146 BC. It was a province of Byzantium until 1204, when it became a Latin principality after the Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople. Achaea extended included the tributary duchies of Athens and Thebes. The Villehardouin family established a glittering court at Andravida. In 1275 Achaea passed to the Angevin rulers of Naples. It was overrun by the Ottomans in 1460.