During Antiquity, many Greeks lived in cities close to the sea, and led an urban life. Only Arcadia, in the middle of the Peloponnese, lacked cities; its people led a pastoral life, far from the sea. Thus Arcadia symbolized a pure, idyllic, rural life, far from the city.
Sir Philip Sidney was an English poet who lived from 1554 to 1586. Arcadia, a work in the new genre of prose romance, has been described (on Wikipedia) as "by far his most ambitious work". Dedicated to his sister Mary Herbert, the Countess of Pembroke, it traces the adventures of the princes Pyrocles and Musidorus, and the fortunes of the Duke of Arcadia.
Shakespeare used an episode from Arcadia as the source for the Gloucester subplot in King Lear. For details, refer to this page on the British Library's website.
A famous painting by Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665) depicts a pastoral scene with idealized shepherds from classical antiquity gathered around an austere tomb. Its title is Et in Arcadia Ego, which is customarily translated as "Even in Arcadia, there I am." "I" is usually taken to mean Death, and the title is seen as a memento mori. (Poussin was the leading painter of the classical French Baroque style.)
Arcadia today is one of Greece's 74 regional units.
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