History of the Peloponnesian War

About the same time, as the summer was ending, the Ambraciots themselves, with many of the barbarians whom they had summoned to their standard, made an expedition against the Amphilochian Argos and the rest of Amphilochia.

And enmity between them and the Argives first began from the following circumstance.

Amphilochus son of Amphiaraus, when he returned home after the Trojan war, was dissatisfied with the state of affairs at Argos,[*](Alcmaeon, the elder brother of Amphilochus, had slain their mother Eriphyle (cf. Thuc. 2.102.5). The foundation of Amphilochian Argos is ascribed by other authors (Strabo, vii. 326 c; Apollod. 3. 7) to Alcmaeon or to his son Amphilochus.) and therefore founded Amphilochian Argos on the Ambracian gulf, and occupied the country of Amphilochia, calling the town Argos after the name of his own fatherland.

And this city was the largest in Amphilochia and had the wealthiest inhabitants.

But many generations later the Amphilochians, under the stress of misfortunes, invited in the Ambraciots, who bordered on Amphilochia, to share the place with them, and these first became Hellenes and adopted their present dialect in consequence of their union with the Ambraciots;

but the rest of the Amphilochians are still barbarians. Now in course of time the Ambraciots expelled the Argives and themselves seized the city.

But the Amphilochians, when this happened, placed themselves under the protection of the Acarnanians, and together they called in the Athenians, who sent to them Phormio as general with thirty ships. On the arrival of Phormio they took Argos by storm and reduced the Ambraciots to slavery, and Amphilochians and Acarnanians settled there together.

It was after this that the alliance between the Athenians and the Acarnanians was first established.

The Ambraciots first conceived their enmity toward the Argives from this enslavement of their own countrymen; and afterwards in the course of the war they made this expedition, which consisted, besides themselves, of Chaonians and some of the other barbarian tribes of the neighbourhood. And when they came to Argos, although they dominated the country, they were unable to take the city by assault; they therefore went home and the several tribes disbanded. Such were the events of the summer.