History of the Peloponnesian War

So Sitalces yielded, and after a stay of only thirty days in all, eight of which had been spent among the Chalcidians, returned home with his army with all speed. And Perdiccas afterwards gave his sister Stratonice to Seuthes as he had promised. Such, then, is the history of the expedition of Sitalces.

During the same winter the Athenians in Naupactus, after the Peloponnesian fleet had been disbanded, made an expedition under the command of Phormio. They first skirted the coast in the direction of Astacus, and then, disembarking, invaded the interior of Acarnania with four hundred Athenian hoplites from the ships and four hundred Messenian. And after they had expelled from Stratus, Coronta, and other places such men as were regarded as disloyal, and had restored Cynes son of Theolytus to Coronta, they returned again to their ships.

For it seemed impracticable in winter to make a campaign against Oeniadae, whose inhabitants alone of the Acarnanians were always hostile; for the river Achelous, which rises in Mount Pindus and flows through the country of the Dolopians, Agraeans, and Amphilochians and then through the Acarnanian plain, passes by the city of Stratus high up the stream, but by Oeniadae empties into the sea, where it surrounds the city with marshes, thus rendering military operations there impossible in winter by reason of the water.

Besides, most of the Echinades islands lie opposite to Oeniadae at no great distance from the mouths of the Achelous, so that the river, which is large, keeps making fresh deposits of silt, and some of the islands have already become part of the mainland, and probably this will happen to all of them in no great while.

For the stream is wide and deep and turbid, and the islands are close together and serve to bind to one another the bars as they are formed, preventing them from being broken up, since the islands lie, not in line, but irregularly, and do not allow straight channels for the water into the open sea. These islands are uninhabited and not large.