ACHAIA.- On this part of Greece, and especially at Athens, the most munificent public benefits, of almost every description, were bestowed by the Emperor Hadrian. - Eckhel, vi. p. 487. See
Achaia (Akhaía), GREECE. Also spelled Achaea. During Mycenaean times it referred to the whole of the Peloponnese, but otherwise to a region on the north coast of the Peloponnese. Its original name, Ægialus, meant 'shore ' from its location. When the Ionians settled here they called the place after themselves. It received the name Achaea when the Achaei superseded the Ionians. As the Achaean League, a military alliance, it passed to the Romans in 198 BC, becoming part of the Roman province of Macedonia in 146 BC and a province in its own right in 27 BC. It was under Ottoman Turkish rule between 1460 and 1828.