The first Greeks who arrived in Greece (20th century B.C.), the ones

who were called Achaeans, were semi-nomadic shepherds coming from

Central Europe accustomed to wandering with their flocks in the grasslands

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

Achilles (13th century B.C.), hero of Homer's Iliad, was an Achaean.

In 709 B.C., Myskellos of Rhype, in the region of Achaea, crossed

the Ionian Sea with his fellow citizens and founded Kroton, in Southern Italy.

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

From 277 B.C. onwards, Kroton was controlled by the Romans.

In the 9th century A.D., Saracen invasions forced the populations inhabiting

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

It was in this area that I was born.