Attica

                                     Arcadia, Thomas Eakins, c1883

"There is perhaps no part of Europe, which more deservedly...excites the curiosity of the Lovers of polite Literature than...Attica, and Athens its Capital City: whether we reflect on the Figure it makes in History, on account of the excellent men it has produced in every Art...or whether we consider the Antiquities which are said to be still remaining there...the most perfect Models of what is excellent in Sculpture and Architecture."

 - James Stuart and Nicholas Revett, in  The Victorians and Ancient Greece, R.Jenkins, Harvard University Press, 1980

Quote: Alcmaeon of Croton - c500BC

'About what is invisible, about what is mortal, the gods have clear knowledge, but to us as men, only inference on what is coming is possible.'

Quote: Thucydides

'It will be enough for me, however, if these words of mine are judged useful by those who want to understand clearly the events which happened in the past and which (human nature being what it is) will, at some time or other and in much the same ways, be repeated in the future. My work is not a piece of writing designed to meet the taste of an immediate public, but was done to last forever.' 

 Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War,  I:22