Peloponnesus

The peninsula in southern Greece and separated from the rest by the Isthmus of Corinth. In Roman times it was politically referred to as Achaia (or Archaea).

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The city of Sparta was one of the oldest and strongest of the ancient Greek cities. As Athens grew in importance, it began to challenge the powers of Sparta. Between 431 and 404 BC, a series of four major wars and many petty ones broke out between them and their allies, that became the subject matter of Thucydides' The Peloponnesian War.

The peninsula was reorganized into a province with its own proconsul by Augustus and renamed Archaea (after Archidamus, "the goodly Spartan king who commanded the earliest expeditions of the Spartan's Peloponnesian confederation"), with its capital in Corinth.

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