I had the same problem and it happened because my local repository was corrupted. I manually deleted the local repository and forced maven to download again
Just go to your .m2 folder where your dependency(springframework) is downloaded and manually delete it. Then again paste the dependency in your pom.xml file and save it.But do it with a stable internet connection.
I would just using spring boot ...it makes starting with spring easier. That error is occurring because you don't have all the correct jars in yoour class path e.g. add to your maven/gradle/buildpath file:
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
<version>4.3.7.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>