History of the Peloponnesian War

there they delight thee with boxing and dancing and song, making mention of thy name, whenever they ordain the contest.” And that there was a musical contest also to which men resorted as competitors Homer once more makes clear in the following verses from the same hymn. After commemorating the Delian chorus of women he ends his praise of them with the following verses, in which he also mentions himself:

Come now, let Apollo be gracious and Artemis likewise, and farewell, all ye maidens. Yet remember me even in after times, whenever some other toil-enduring man, a dweller upon the earth, shall visit this isle and ask: 'O maidens, what man is the sweetest of minstrels to you of all who wander hither, and in whom do you take most delight? Do you make answer, all with one accord, in gentle words, 'The blind man who dwells in rugged Chios.'

Such is Homer's testimony, showing that in ancient times also there was a great concourse and festival in Delos. And in later times the people of the islands and the Athenians continued to send their choruses with sacrifices, but the contests, and indeed most of the ceremonies, fell into disuse in consequence, probably, of calamities, until the Athenians, at the time of which we now speak, restored the contests and added horse-races, of which there had been none before.

During the same winter the Ambraciots, fulfilling the promise by which they had induced Eurylochus to keep his army there, made an expedition against Amphilochian Argos with three thousand hoplites, and invading its territory took Olpae, a stronghold on the hill near the sea, which the Acarnanians had fortified and had at one time used as a common tribunal[*](ie. either a federal court of the Acarnanians, as Steup maintains (see Schoemann, Gr. Aiterthümer, ii, ed. 3. p 76), or a court of justice common to the Acarnanians and Amphilochians (see Kruse, Hellas, ii. p. 333), as Classen explains. The latter view has the support of Steph. Byz.: )/ολπαι φρούριον, κοινὸν )ακαρνάνων καὶ )αμφιλόχων δικαστήριον, θουκυδίδης τρίτῃ.) of justice; and it is about twenty-five stadia from the city of Argos, which is by the sea.

Meanwhile some of the Acarnanian troops came to the relief of Argos, while the rest encamped at a place in Amphilochia which is called Crenae, keeping guard to prevent the Peloponnesians with Eurylochus from passing through unobserved to join the Ambraciots.

They also sent for Demosthenes, who had led the army of the Athenians into Aetolia, to come and be their leader, as well as for the twenty Athenian ships[*](After the return of the thirty ships (3.98.5), these twenty had been sent out again round the Peloponnesus. Their real goal was Naupactus (3.114.2), but answering the appeal of the Acarnanians they turned aside for the moment to the Ambracian Gulf (3.107.1).) which happened to be off the coast of Peloponnesus under the command of Aristotle son of Timocrates and Hierophon son of Antimnestus.

A messenger was also sent by the Ambraciots at Olpae to the city of Ambracia with a request that all the forces of the town should be dispatched to their aid, for they feared that Eurylochus and his troops might not be able to make their way through the Acarnanians, and, in that case, that they themselves would either have to fight single-handed, or, if they wished to retreat, would find that unsafe.

Now the Peloponnesian forces under Eurylochus, when they learned that the Ambraciots had arrived at Olpae, set out from Proschium with all speed to reinforce them, and crossing the Acheloiis advanced through Acarnania, which was without defenders because of the reinforcements which had been sent to Argos, and as they advanced they had the city of Stratus with its garrison on their right, and the rest of Acarnania on their left.