Greece - Arcadia - The Dream Of Harmony With Nature (79/151)

Greece - Arcadia - The Dream Of Harmony With Nature (79/151)

Already, in the middle of the first century B.C., Virgil described his utopian land Arcadia. The few lines he wrote have since exerted an influence on generations of writers, painters and travellers up to the present day. The real Arcadia is a remote highland in the centre of the Peloponnesian peninsula - its capital is Tripolis. It is inhabited by Greeks whose features show traces of the ancient Hellenes mingled with those of the Slavs, who moved to this then virtually deserted mountainous region in the era of the migration of the peoples. After a turbulent history, by the end of the 18th century Tripolis was a multicultural city populated by Greeks, Slavs, Albanians and Turks. The people here have always lived mainly from agriculture and manual labour. Many thousands of sheep and goats on the pastures of the Arcadian mountains are the most important means of livelihood. Numerous figures of Greek mythology once frolicked in Arcadia, but it is Pan, the horned god of flocks and herds, with the legs of a goat, who has the closest connection to this landscape. This secluded mountainous region has some surprises in store: Once situated here was the large antique city of Megalopolis with Greece's largest theatre; this most beautiful Arcadian temple remained undamaged for almost 2,000 years, right up into the 19th century. The Greeks' liberation struggle against the Turks started in the sequestered cloisters of Arcadia, and later during the era of the Greek military dictatorship this isolated mountain region became a place of refuge and second home for the musician Mikis Theodorakis.