History of the Peloponnesian War

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.