Et in Arcadia Ego
‘‘Even in Arcadia, there am I”. Heavy stuff with which to start a blog on the essence of landscape and place, but Arcadia is a spatial concept, of course, as well as an intellectual and spiritual one. Getting our heads around the origins of Arcadia has been quite a tussle, however, so classicists and historians – please correct us as and where you need to.
Until our recent visit to Greece, if Terroir thought about Arcadia at all, we would have said something along the lines of Classical mythology, 17th century romantic shepherds posing in an Italian landscape, a French colony in eastern Canada and “Brideshead Revisited”.
A search through various references confirms that Arcadia certainly was a concept in Greek and Roman mythology. It was a mysterious, mountainous place, a lush, green, heaven-on-earth, full of mythical creatures including the gods Pan and Hermes, plus a load of shepherds. Presumably there were also sheep but apparently not enough to destroy that lush green, utopian, biodiverse, pastoral and bucolic landscape. Perhaps lamb was seen as the local Ambrosia.
The Arcadia concept seems to have a gone a little quiet for some centuries until, following on from the Scientific Revolution, the 18/19th century Age of Enlightenment burst on the scene, with a host of great thinkers, writers, scientists, philosophers and artists, including Poussin, whose posing shepherds (Et in Arcadia Ego) - right - is dated at approx. 1640 …
Nicolas Poussin, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=157589
… and Schiller whose poem entitled Resignation was published 1786, here in translation:
“Yes! even I was in Arcadia born,
And, in mine infant ears,
A vow of rapture was by Nature sworn;”
By the first half of the 19th century, people like Francois Pouqueville and William Wordsworth were also on the case.
The Classical Arcadia was located in the Peloponnese in the middle of the Greek mainland. It’s still there – and so are the sheep.
Inevitably, modern Arcadia isn’t quite as lush as we imagined the original version to have been but it is certainly hilly, green and, if you can find a suitable road verge, very floriferous (below left). The sheep were actually very hard to find but most of the countryside is covered with woodland, olive groves, walnuts, pasture and the occasional hay meadow (below right).
I suspect that most visitors enter the kingdom of Arcadia via the village of Lagadia, a striking hill top settlement with magnificent views. But wait – turn around – the buildings are as stunning (perhaps even more so) as the views. The houses are sturdy, rectangular, stone structures with overhanging clay tile roofs, built with skill, grace and assurance, and with wonderful attention to details. In other parts of the Mediterranean, say the Castagniccia in northern Corsica, such buildings might well be neglected, empty or falling apart. Here, the majority appear to be in robust health, although tourism is probably the main form of income now.
And some of those details:
Arcadia’s adaptation to tourism, including the sale of local crafts:
There is a fascinating architectural, historical, cultural and geographical back story behind this beautiful ‘village-scape’. Lagadia was the centre for skilled stonemasons who built houses, churches, schools, public buildings and bridges not just throughout Arcadia but pretty much the whole of Greece.
“… it was the builders hailing from Lagadia and its surrounding villages, who belonged to the organised groups of craftsmen, that penned the narrative of traditional architecture in Greece” (https://www.travel.gr/en/experiences-ee/unknown-greece/the-revival-of-lagadias-master-crafts/). Here (above and below) are a trio of Lagadia’s church-scapes.
But why here, why up a mountain in central Greece? Security must have been a major factor - Greek history was hardly a bundle of laughs and lowland areas must have been very vulnerable to whoever the enemy happened to be at the time.
So those skilled stonemasons took advantage of the Arcadian hill tops to build around the contours, creating dramatic village ‘amphitheatres’ with excellent views of potential enemies on the ‘stage’ below.
Without water, however, the security factor could not have been exploited, but the area is well supplied with mountain springs. With such a reliable water source the area must have seemed very attractive. Add in a basic agricultural economy (remember those sheep plus useful trees like walnuts and olives), plus a ready supply of building stone, and the area must have seemed like heaven on earth – Arcadia indeed.
Wittingly or unwittingly they also created a landscape and architectural composition which delights the eye and, now, the modern tourist.
Not all was peaceful, however, in this hill top Arcadia. Many villages bear the scars of two world wars and also of more local struggles.
The agonies of the global conflicts were extended by the Greco Turkish War from 1919 to 1922 and the Greek Civil War which lasted, on and off, from 1943 to 1949.
The most heart-rending war memorial, however, was the village of Kalavrita, located in the mountains to the north of Lagadia. Following the execution of 78 German soldiers in 1943, by mountain based Greek resistance fighters, a German ‘response’ force, in the form of the 117th Jäger Division, was sent to nearby Kalavrita.
In brief, the village population was rounded up and imprisoned in the school while the village was looted and burnt. All men and boys over the age of 13 were then taken to a nearby field (above right) and shot and the school building set on fire. Incredibly, the women and children escaped - to discover the horror which had overcome their community.
A more cheerful and pituresque side to Kalavrita is its train service. A delightful, narrow gauge ‘rack assisted’ railway connects the village to the coastal town of Diakopto, some 30 km to the north east. The route descends via a twisting, precipitous and incredibly scenic sandstone gorge.
The first surprise is that this is 21st century public transport, ie a regional railway, not a purely a tourist heritage attraction. But considering how crowded our train was, one wonders how far in advance the locals may have to book their seats. The journey is regularly punctuated by stops to allow the train to be connected to the rack (for the steeper sections) and for the crew to change the points on the passing loop. Perhaps it is more ‘heritage’ style than one might expect from a modern two-car diesel unit!
Stops may also be necessary to avoid the hikers which make use of the rail track as a walking route (the train crew are not the only human figures in the view, above right). There are two types of hazard associated with using this type of ‘footpath’: one is the danger of actually being hit by a train, although the drivers are probably very used to having to slam on the anchors on rounding a corner only to discover a hiker wandering down the middle of the ‘road’. The second danger is the width of the track bed. We saw hikers flattened to the side of the canyon or teetering on the edge of a precipitous drop, as the train gently eased its way past. Is this the latest extreme sport?
