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Arcadia

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Arcadia or Arkadía (Greek Αρκαδία; see also List of traditional Greek place names) is a region of Greece in the Peloponnesus. It takes its name from the mythological character Arcas.

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Modern Arcadia

Arcadia has its present-day capital at Tripoli. It forms the largest prefecture on the Peloponnesian peninsula. It currently covers about 18% of the entire peninsula, although it once extended to about 20 to 25% of the peninsula.

The prefecture has a skiing resort on Mount Maenalus, the Mainalon, located about 20 km NW of Tripoli. The other mountains include the Parnon in the southeast, the Artemisio, the Saita, the Skiathio, the Lykaia and Tsiberou.

The Greece Interstate 7 (E65) freeway, which was extended after 1997 and in 2003, runs through Arcadia on a north-west to south-east axis and nearly forms in the southwest the end of the freeway. A thermoelectric power station which produces electricity for most of southern Greece, operates to the south of Megalopolis, along with a coal mine.

Arcadia has two tunnels. The Artemisio Tunnel opened first, followed by the tunnel east of Megalopolis; both serve traffic flowing between Messenia and Athens.

The chief cities and communities in the prefecture include Tripoli, Astros, Vytina, Dimitsana, Lagkadia, Leonidio, Leontari, Levidi, Megalopolis and Stemnitsa.

In agriculture, potato farms, mixed farming, olive groves, and pasture dominate the plains of Arcadia, especially in the area around Megalopolis and between Tripoli and Levidi.

Theodoros Kolokotronis (1770 - 1843), a general in the Greek War of Independence (1821 - 1832), lived in Arcadia.

Persons

Climate

The climate consists of hot summers and mild winters in the eastern part, the southern part, the low lying areas and the central area at altitudes lower than 1,000 m. The area primarily receives rain during fall and winter months in the rest of Arcadia. Winter snow occurs commonly in the mountainous areas for much of the west and the northern part, the Taygetus area, the Mainalon.

History

Les Bergers d’Arcadie by Nicolas Poussin.
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Les Bergers d’Arcadie by Nicolas Poussin.

Due to its remote, mountainous character, Arcadia has always been a classical refuge. So during the Dorian invasion, when Mycenaean Greek was replaced with Doric Greek along the coast of the Peloponnes, it survived in Arcadia, developing into the Arcadocypriot dialect of Classical Antiquity. Arcadocypriot never became a literary dialect, but it is known from inscriptions. Tsan is a letter of the Greek alphabet occurring only in Arcadia, shaped like cyrillic И; it represents an affricate that developed from labiovelars in context where they became t in other dialects. Tsakonian Greek , still spoken on the coast of the modern prefecture of Arcadia, in the Classical period considered the southern Argolid coast immediately adjoining Arcadia, is a descendant of Doric Greek, and as such is an extraordinary and much noted example of a surviving regional dialect of Classical Greek. The capital of Tsakonia is the Arcadian coastal town of Leonidi.

One of the birth-places reported for Zeus is Mount Lycaeum in Arcadia. Lycaon, a cannibalistic Pelasgian king, was transformed into a werewolf by Zeus. Lycaon's daughter was Callisto. It was also said to have been the birthplace of Zeus' son, Hermes.

Arcadia remained a rustic, secluded area, and its inhabitants became proverbial as primitive herdsmen leading simple pastoral unsophisticated yet happy lives, to the point that Arcadia may refer to some imaginary idyllic paradise, immortalized by Virgil's Eclogues, and later by Jacopo Sannazaro in his pastoral masterpiece, Arcadia (1504); see also Arcadia (paradise).

The phrase Et in Arcadia ego goes back to a 1647 painting by Nicolas Poussin, also known as "The Arcadian shepherds", where it appears as an inscription on a tomb. This phrase is said to be an anagram which, when the letters are rearranged, spells out the message "I tego arcanum dei", which in English translates loosely to "I conceal the secrets of god". This is the meaning given in Baigent and Leigh's book "Holy Blood, Holy Grail", which is the main inspiration for Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code".

In the 20th century, Arcadia experienced extensive population loss through emigration, mostly to the Americas. Many Arcadian villages lost almost half their inhabitants, and fears arose that they would turn into ghost towns. Arcadia now has a smaller population than Corinthia. Demographers expected that its population would halve between 1951 and the early 21st century.

In the mid to late 20th century a power plant began operating.

Communications

  • Arkadiki Radiophonia Teleorassi - ART

Provinces

Arcadia has 4 provinces:

Municipalities and communities

Municipality YPES code Seat (if different) Postal code
Apollonas 0501 Tyros 220 29
Dimitsana 0506 Dimitsana 220 07
Falanthos 0523 Davia 221 00
Falaisia 0522 Leontari 220 21
Gortyna 0505 Karytaina 220 22
Iraia 0507 Paloumpa 220 28
Kleitor 0507 Mygdalia 220 28
Kontovazaina 0509 220 15
Korythio 0510 Steno 221 00
Lagkadia 0512 220 03
Leonidi 0514 223 00
Levidi 0513 220 02
Mantineia 0515 Nestani 220 05
Megalopoli 0516 222 00
North Kynouria 0503 Astros 220 01
Skyritida 0517 Vlachokerasea 220 16
Tegea 0518 Stadio 220 12
Trikolones 0519 Stemnitsa 220 24
Tripoli 0520 221 00
Tropaia 0521 220 08
Valtetsi 0502 Asea 220 27
Vytina 0504 220 10
Community YPES code Seat (if different) Postal code
Kosmas 0511 230 58

See also: List of settlements in the Arcadia prefecture

External links

 

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