History of the Peloponnesian War

The richest soils were always most subject to this change of masters; such as the district now called Thessaly, Boeotia, most of the Peloponnese, Arcadia excepted, and the most fertile parts of the rest of Hellas.

The goodness of the land favoured the aggrandizement of particular individuals, and thus created faction which proved a fertile source of ruin. It also invited invasion.

Accordingly Attica, from the poverty of its soil enjoying from a very remote period freedom from faction, never changed its inhabitants.