Roman Greece

Province of Achaea Established

Augustus reorganises the Greek mainland, detaching it from Macedonia and creating the senatorial province of Achaea with its capital at Corinth.

In the great provincial settlement of 27 BC, Augustus divided the empire between himself and the Senate. Achaea — encompassing the Peloponnese, Attica, Boeotia, Phocis, Epirus south of the Acroceraunian range, and most of the Aegean islands — was assigned to the Senate and governed by an annual proconsul of praetorian rank. The capital was placed at Roman Corinth, refounded as Colonia Laus Iulia Corinthiensis by Julius Caesar in 44 BC. Athens, Sparta, Delphi and a handful of other cities retained the formal status of free or federated communities, but real power lay with the governor and with the great civic notables whose wealth Rome cultivated. The settlement gave the long-fought-over Greek world its most durable political framework since Alexander.