Arcadia, the central and, next to Laconia, largest of the ancient divisions of the Peloponnesus; area about 1,700 sq. m. It included the most picturesque and beautiful portion of Greece. The country embraced by its ancient boundaries is mountainous, with many forests, but it contains also rich meadow lands, and rivers and brooks abound. Mount Cyllene in the northeast, Erymanthus in the northwest, and Lycaeus in the southwest, are some of its mountains most frequently mentioned by the ancients. The Alpheus was its principal stream, and Stymphalis its largest lake. It had neither seaports nor navigable rivers. Pausanias says its name was derived from that of Areas, son of Callisto. In the most ancient times its inhabitants, of Pelasgic origin, were hunters and rough shepherds; but they gradually turned their attention to agriculture and to raising cattle. Their habits were simple, and the quiet and happiness of their life among the mountains, their fondness for music and dancing, their hospitality and pastoral customs, made the Arcadians pass among the ancients for favorites of the gods. Pan and Diana were their principal deities. The poets have chosen Arcadia for the scene of many idyls, until its name has become the synonyme for a land of peace, simple pleasures, and untroubled quiet.

In spite of this the Arcadians were, like nearly all mountain races, a brave and martial people, and, though they produced no great military leaders, were almost constantly engaged in war, either on their own account or as the mercenaries of others, fighting bravely even against their own countrymen for those who hired them. They fought in the ranks of both contending parties in the Peloponnesian war, and at the battle of Issus thousands of them were slain in the army of Darius, by Alexander. The principal cities of Arcadia - Mantinea, Tegea, and Orchomenus - engaged in frequent and injurious disputes among themselves. Against the Spartcns the Arcadians (about 370 B. C.) built the city of Megalopolis, and organized a general assembly. They subsequently became confederates in the Achaean league, and on its final defeat in 146 B. C. fell under the Roman power. Thenceforth they have no separate history from that of the em-p're, and of mediaeval and modern Greece. - At present Arcadia, comprising the larger part of the ancient division, with the addition of the ancient district of Cynuria and a part of Laconia, forms one of the nomarchies of the kingdom of Greece, bounded E. in part by the gulf of Nauplia; area, 2,028 sq. m.; pop. in 1870, 131,740. Capital, Tripolitza.