Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/513

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B. VII. C. VII. § 7, 8.
EPIRUS.
499

the gulf, over Antony, and Cleopatra, the queen of Egypt, who was present in the engagement.

Nicopolis is well peopled, and is improving every day. It has a large territory, and is adorned with the spoils of war. In the suburbs is a sacred enclosure; part of it is a grove, containing a gymnasium and a stadium, intended for the celebration of quinquennial games; the other part, on a rising ground overhanging the grove, is sacred to Apollo. The Olympian game, called the Actia,[q 1] is instituted there in honour of Apollo Actius. It is under the superintendence of the Lacedæmonians. The other surrounding settlements are dependent on Nicopolis. The Actian games[q 1] were formerly celebrated in honour of the god by the neighbouring people; it was a contest in which the victor was crowned; but Cæsar has conferred on it greater honours.

7. After Ambracia follows the Amphilochian Argos, founded by Alcmæon and his sons. According to Ephorus, Alcmæon, after the expedition of the Epigoni[1] against Thebes, upon the solicitation of Diomed, accompanied him in his invasion of Ætolia, and obtained joint possession of this country and of Acarnania. When Agamemnon invited them to come to the siege of Troy, Diomed went, but Alcmæon remained in Acarnania, founded Argos, and gave it the name Amphilochian, after his brother Amphilochus. On the same authority the river Inachus, which flows through the country and empties itself into the bay, received its name from the river in the Argive territory. Thucydides, however, says that Amphilochus himself, upon his return from Troy, dissatisfied with the state of things at Argos, passed over into Acarnania, and having succeeded to the dynasty of his brother, founded the city which is called after his name.

8. The Amphilochians are Epirotæ, as also are those nations who inhabit a rugged country situated above and close to the Illyrian mountains, the Molotti, Athamanes, Æthices, Tymphæi, Orestæ Paroræi, and Atintanes, some of whom approach nearer to Macedonia, others to the Ionian Gulf. It is said that Orestes possessed the territory Orestias at the time of his flight, after the murder of his mother, and left the country

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Virg. Æn. iii. 280.
  1. ↑ Descendants of the seven chiefs who fought and perished before Thebes.
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