What’s in a name? A history of the word Arcadia - Published in Arcadia News

What’s in a name? A history of the word Arcadia

Published in Arcadia News

In the first years of the 20th century, enterprising farmers came to the happy realization that citrus trees grow remarkably well at the foot of Camelback Mountain. Orchards quickly sprang up throughout the area and Arcadia became the scenic and prosperous community that it is to this day.

It is no surprise then, considering the natural beauty and abundance of the land that “Arcadia” became its name. 

Almost everyone is familiar with the word “Arcadia” but few can define it. There is a town or city called Arcadia in 26 states.

In 1882, when astronomers got their first detailed look at a particular region of Mars with grand, fresh lava flows, they named it Arcadia. Arcadia is a “tranquil plane of existence” to Dungeons and Dragons players; and to Duran Duran fans it’s the name of the band’s mid-80s, short-lived side project. “Arcadia” is the name of a best-selling romantic poem from the Italian Renaissance and it was the name given to modern day Virginia by the 16th century Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano.  

“Arcadia” may refer to the mountainous, green, coastal region of Southern Greece that you can visit today. Although this land is beautiful, it lives in the shadow of the ancient mythical land for which it was named. According to Hesiod, the author of Greek mythology, Arcadia was inhabited by a thriving population during the Golden Age, the first and most pure of his five mythological ages. In contrast with the purity of the populous, the gods were misbehaving.

“Arcadia” is named for the Greek god Arcas, the illegitimate child of Zeus (happily and famously married to Hera) and Callisto. In an effort to keep the affair on the down-low, their child was hidden away in the rural mountainous region that now bears its name. As the goddess of marriage and the wife of Zeus, Hera was predictably enraged by the whole thing. To appease her, Callisto was transformed into a bear as punishment for her misdoings. Arcas grew up in his rustic, natural wonderland and eventually became the greatest hunter in Greece. 

The story culminates with a fateful day of hunting when Arcas encounters a great bear – which just so happens to be his mother. Callisto, in bear form, ran to embrace her son and Arcas, as any reasonable person would do with a bear charging at them, prepared to kill her. Fortunately, Daddy Zeus was watching from above and intervened before this act of unintentional parenticide could take place. He turned Arcas into a bear and hurled him and his mother into space, where they remain to this day as the famous constellations Ursa Minor and Ursa Major.

Despite this ancient scandalous drama, to the ancient Greeks, the Golden Age and Arcadia were characterized by an innocence and pastoral serenity that is reminiscent of The Garden of Eden. Arcadia was the home of Pan, the god of nature and fertility who played the “pan” flute and is the namesake of Peter Pan. Pan was the original dirty hippie. He is a creature of the land, he has the legs of a goat, and is considered the god of “rustic music.” Pan and the Arcadians were unspoiled by the complications of modern society, they lived in simple, ignorant, rustic bliss.  

Arcadia has stuck in the minds of humans since Hesiod. One of the many artists who has used Arcadia as a muse is Thomas Cole. Cole was born in the grey metal dreariness that was the height of the Industrial Revolution in England. In 1818, when Thomas was 17, his family moved to America, where his father started his own wallpaper factory. Young Thomas was inspired by the green and expansive wilderness of 19th century New England. He soon began to dread an anticipated swallowing up of this beauty by the industrial machine that had already engulfed his homeland. His concern for the loss of unspoiled natural beauty fueled much of his career as an artist and his most famous work is a glorious landscape on display at the Denver Art Museum called “Dream of Arcadia.”   

As so many have done before and after him, Cole uses Arcadia as a symbol to remind us of the natural bliss that we leave behind with technological advancement. In fact, this particular painting reportedly provided the creators of “Star Wars” with inspiration for the planet of Naboo, an idyllic and pastoral land yet-unspoiled by the industrialization of the Trade Federation.

Modern phenomena like the “paleo-diet” have their roots in this fundamental idea that the progressions of society have had mostly ill-effects on humans, a sentiment that reaches as far back as we can trace ideas.

The wide popularity of the concept of Arcadia is evidence of the wide popularity of nostalgia and discontentment with the present.

“Arcadia” is the other side where the grass is greener; it’s an idealized version of the past that can never be retained, but nonetheless lives on in our collective imagination. The Greeks accepted the Golden Age pastoral bliss of the ancient Arcadians to be a thing of the past, it was not seen so much as a goal to be attained but rather a reminder of our roots.

In this sense, the works of Thomas Cole and others inspired by Arcadia are invitations to meditate on our Earthly nature, to be engulfed with a sense of the primordial. It is an important theme that has stubbornly persisted through at least two and half millennia of art and culture.

It is a compliment of the highest degree for a place to be deemed worthy of the name Arcadia. It represents the purest and most natural beauty that is not created, but discovered and allowed to sprout, like the vast citrus orchards in our own Arcadia of the early 20th century.