Geography

​Next is the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf. The mouth of this gulf is slightly larger than four stadia, and its circumference is as much as three hundred stadia, and it is entirely well-harboured. On the right as one sails in, the Acarnanians, who are Greeks, inhabit the country; and here, near the mouth, is the temple of Actian Apollo—a hill on which the temple stands, and at its foot a plain containing a grove and shipyards, in which Caesar dedicated as a first-fruit a fleet of ten ships, from a vessel with a single bank of oars to one with ten. But it is said that both the boathouses and the ships have been destroyed by fire. On the left is Nicopolis and, of the Epirotes, the Cassopaeans, extending as far as the innermost recess of the gulf near Ambracia. This city lies slightly above the innermost recess, being a foundation of Gorgus, the son of Cypselus. The River Aratthus flows past it, offering a passage up from the sea to the city of only a few stadia, taking its rise in Mount Tymphe and Paroraia. Now this city was exceptionally prosperous in earlier times also (at any rate, the gulf has received its name from it), but Pyrrhus adorned it most of all, using the place as his royal residence. Later, however, the Macedonians and the Romans, by their continuous wars, wore down both this city and the others because of their disobedience, so that at last Augustus, seeing that the cities were completely abandoned, gathered them into one city, which was called by him Nicopolis, situated on this gulf; and he named it after the victory in which he defeated Antony in a naval battle before the mouth of the gulf, and with him Cleopatra, the queen of the Egyptians, who was herself present at the contest. Now Nicopolis is well peopled and its increase is daily, since it possesses a large territory and the adornment made from the spoils, as well as the sacred precinct established in its suburb, which on the one hand contains a gymnasium and a stadium in a grove for the five-yearly games, and on the other hand is on the sacred hill of Apollo that lies above the grove. The contest, the Actia, has been designated as Olympian, being sacred to Actian Apollo, and the Lacedaemonians have the superintendence of it. The other settlements are dependencies of Nicopolis. The Actian games were celebrated in honour of the god even in earlier times, a contest in which the prize was a wreath, by the neighboring inhabitants; but now Caesar has made them more honorable.

​After Ambracia comes Amphilochian Argos, a foundation of Alcmaeon and his children. Ephorus says that Alcmaeon, after the expedition of the Epigoni against Thebes, being invited by Diomedes, went with him into Aetolia and helped him conquer both this country and Acarnania; and when Agamemnon called them to the Trojan war, Diomedes went, but Alcmaeon remained in Acarnania, founded Argos, and called it Amphilochian after the name of his brother, and named the Inachus, the river that flows through the country into the gulf, after the river in the Argive territory. Thucydides, however, says that Amphilochus himself, after his return from Troy, being displeased with the state of affairs at Argos, withdrew to Acarnania, and having succeeded to his brother’s dominion, founded the city and named it after himself.