The New Student's Reference Work/Arcadia

Arca'dia, a mountainous country of ancient Greece, lies in the northwestern part of the Peloponnesus. In the northeast is the great waterfall of the Styx, which the Greeks thought the main river of the infernal regions. Arcadia seems never to have had immigration from other countries, but was always peopled by the same race, noted for their great simplicity of life. Cut off from commerce divided by the mountains into small districts that had very little to do with one another, the rustic ways of the Arcadian seemed awkward and stupid to other Greeks. Their history is made up of wars against the Spartans. They became a part of the Achæan league, and later of the Roman province of Achaia. Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia greatly praises the Arcadians.