The first Greeks who arrived in Greece (XX century BC) the ones

who were called Achaean, were half-nomadic shepherds coming from the

middle of Europe accustomed to wander with their flock in the grasslands

of the plains and in the forests of the mountains. I descend from this people.

Achilles, hero of Homer's Iliad, set in XIII century BC was an Achaean.

In 709 BC Myskellos from Rhype, in the region of Achaea, crossed

the Ionian Sea with fellow townspeople and founded Kroton in Southern Italy.

This settlement eventually became the most important city of Magna Graecia.

From 277 BC onwards Kroton was controlled by the Romans.

In the IX century AD Saracen invasions forced the majority of the populations who

inhabited that stretch of coast to move inland to the nearby mountains of Sila Piccola.

It was in this area that I was born.