In around 2000 B.C. an Indo-European race appeared on the stage of history which encompassed the Greeks, the Romans, the Gauls, the Britons, the Germans and others. The first Greeks to appear in, Greece were the Achaeans. More powerful and better armed and using horses and war chariots, they prevailed over the inhabitants, starting from Thessaly and ending up in the Peloponnese. Their language also prevailed over the whole of Greece and they absorbed many elements of the Cretan and Aegean civilizations A consequence of this admixture was the creation of a superior civilization, the Creto-Mycenaean. The Achaeans imposed themselves in the Mediterranean, developing trade with Asia Minor, with Egypt, with Lower Italy and with Spain.

They established permanent installations in Cyprus and in Rhodes. Their products were much in demand. Mycenae, the most important Achaean centre, reached Its peak around 1600 B.C. during the Bronze Age. Naturally fortified and strategically placed, Mycenae became very powerful described It as "golden Mycenae" because of the gold transported there by the Achaeans from the Pharaohs of Egypt. The excavations of Heinrich Schliemann in 1816 brought to light the royal graves with their treasures, architectural masterpieces such as the beehive tomb of Atreus, the Lions' Gate and exquisite frescoes. The finds have revealed to us a warrior race which believed in the afterlife. The Mycenaean civilization spread to southern Italy, Libya, Cyrenaica and to the Near East. Multicolored vessels, kylixes and amphorae of the time were in great demand as far as the lands of the Euphrates and the Nile Valley. In the 12th century B.C. the Mycenaean civilization was obliterated by Internal conflict and in 1100 B.C. by the invasion of the Dorians. The inhabitants of the cities and villages fled and settled on Aegean Islands and Cyprus and in Tarsus and Cilicia.