B.C., the Corinthians founded Leucas, Anactorium, Sollirum, and other towns on the coast. (Strab. p. 452.) The original inhabitants of the country were driven more into the interior; they never made much progress in the arts of civilised life; and even at the time of the Peloponnesian war, they were a rude and barbarous people, engaged in continual wars with their neighbours, and living by robbery and piracy. (Thuc. i. 5.) The Acarnananians, however, were Greeks, and as such were allowed to contend in the great Pan-Hellenic games, although they were closely connected with their neighbours, the Agraeans and Amphilochians on the gulf of Ambracia, who were barbarian or non-Hellenic nations. Like other rude mountaineers, the Acarnanians are praised for their fidelity and courage. They formed good light-armed troops, and were excellent slingers. They lived, for the most part dispersed in villages, retiring, when attacked, to the mountains. They were united, however, in a political League, of which Aristotle wrote an account in a work now lost. (Άκαρνάνων Πολίτεια, Strab. p. 331.) Thucydides mentions a hill, named Olpae, near the Amphilochian Argos, which the Acarnanians had fortified as a place of judicial meeting for the settlement of disputes. (Thuc. iii. 105.) The meetings of the League were usually held at Stratus, which was the chief town in Acarnania (Xen. Hell. iv. G. § 4; comp. Thuc. ii. 80); but, in the time of the Romans, the meetings took place either at Thyrium, or at Leucas, the latter of which places became, at that time, the chief city in Arcarnania. (Liv. xxxiii. 16, 17; Polyb. xxvii. 5.) At an early period, when part of Amphilochia belonged to the Acarnanians, they used to hold a public judical congress at Olpae, a fortified hill about 3 miles from Argos Amphilochicum. Of the constitution of their League we have scarcely any particulars. We learn from an inscription found at Punta, the site of ancient Actium, that there was a Council and a general assembly of the people, by which decrees were passed. (Έδοξε τά βουλά καί τώ κοινώ τών Άκαρνάνων). At the head of the League there was a Stratogys (Στρατπγός) or General; and the Council had a Secretary (γραμματεύς), who appears to have been a person of importance, as in the Achaean and Aetolian Leagues. The chief priest (ίεραπόλος) of the temple of Apollo at Actium seems to have been a person of high rank; and either his name or that of the Strategus was employed for official dates, like that of the first Archou at Athens. (Böckh, Corpus Insript. No. 1793.) The history of the Acarnanians begins in the time of the Peloponnesian war. Their hatred against the Corinthian settlers, who had deprived them of all their best ports, naturally led them to side with the Athenians; but the immediate cause of their alliance with the latter arose from the expulsion of the Amphilochians from the town of Argos Amphilochicum by the Corinthian settlers from Ambracia, about B.C. 432. The Acarnanians espoused the cause of the expelled Amphilochians, and in order to obtain the restoration of the latter, they applied for assistance to Athens. The Athenians accordingly sent an expedition under Phormio, who took Argos, expelled the Ambriaciots, and restored the town to the Amphilochians and Acarnanians. An alliance was now formally concluded between the Acarnanians and Athenians. The only towns of Acarnania which did not join it were Oeniadae and Astacus. |
The following is a list of the towns of Acarnania. On the Ambracian gulf, from E. to W.; Limnaea, Echinus (Έχίνος, Steph. B. s. v.; Plin. iv. 2; Ai Vasili), Heracleia (Plin. iv. 2; Vonitza), Anactorium, Actium. On or near the west of the Ionian sea, from N. to S.: Thyrium, Palaerus, Alyzia, Sollium, Astacus, Oeniadae. In the interior from S. to N.: Old Oenia [Oeniadae], Coronta, Metropolis, Stratus, Rhyinchus (Ρύγχος), near Stratus, of uncertain site. (Pol. ap. Ath, iii. p. 95, d.); Phytia or Phoeteiae, Medeon. The Roman Itineraries mention COIN OF ACARNANIA. |
Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/26
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