Acarnania

Coordinates: 38°45′N 21°05′E / 38.750°N 21.083°E / 38.750; 21.083
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
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Ancient Acarnania
)
Acarnania
Ἀκαρνανία
Region
Western Greece
Major citiesStratos
DialectsDoric

Acarnania (

Corinthian Gulf was considered part of the region of Epirus
.

Acarnania's foundation in Greek mythology was traditionally ascribed to Acarnan, son of Alcmaeon.

Ancient Greek Northern regions

History

Map of ancient Acarnania.

Pre-Peloponnesian War

The name of Acarnania appears to have been unknown in the earliest times. Homer (8th century BC) only calls the country opposite Ithaca and Cephalonia, under the general name of "Epeirus" (῎ηπειρος), or the mainland, although he frequently mentions the Aetolians.[n 1]

The country is said to have been originally inhabited by the

Aetolus and his followers. The name of Acarnania is derived from Acarnan, the son of Alcmaeon, who is said to have settled at the mouth of the Achelous.[2]
If this tradition is of any value, it would intimate that an Argive colony settled on the coast of Acarnania at an early period.

In the 7th century BC,

Phoitiai and Stratus are also mentioned by Thucydides, this latter city being the seat of a loose confederation of Acarnanian powers
that was maintained until the late 1st century BC.

The ancient Acarnanians, however, were Greeks, and as such were allowed to contend in the great Pan-Hellenic games, although they were closely connected with their neighbors, the

Amphilochians on the Ambracian Gulf, who were barbarian or non-Hellenic nations. Like other rude mountaineers, the Acarnanians are praised for their fidelity and courage. They formed good light-armed troops, and were excellent slingers. They lived, for the most part, dispersed in villages, retiring, when attacked, to the mountains. Strabo relates that they were united, however, in a political League (the Acarnanian League), of which Aristotle wrote an account in a work now lost (Ἀκαρνάνων Πολιτεία). Thucydides mentions a hill, named Olpae, near the Amphilochian Argos, which the Acarnanians had fortified as a place of judicial meeting for the settlement of disputes.[5] The meetings of the League were usually held at Stratus, which was the chief town in Acarnania;[6] but, in the time of the Romans, the meetings took place either at Thyrium, or at Leucas, the latter of which places became, at that time, the chief city in Acarnania.[7]

At an early period, when part of Amphilochia belonged to the Acarnanians, they used to hold a public judicial congress at Olpae, a fortified hill about 3 miles (4.8 km) from Argos Amphilochicum. Of the constitution of their League, we have scarcely any particulars. We learn from an inscription found at Punta, the site of ancient Actium, that there were a council and a general assembly of the people, by which decrees were passed: Ἔδοξε τᾷ βουλᾷ καὶ τῷ κοινῷ τῶν Ἁκαρνάνων. At the head of the League, there was a strategus (Στρατηγός) or general; and the Council had a secretary (γραμματεύς), who appears to have been a person of importance, as in the Achaean and Aetolian Leagues. The chief priest (ἱεραπόλος) of the temple of Apollo at Actium seems to have been a person of high rank; and either his name or that of the strategus was employed for official dates, like that of the first Archon at Athens.

Classical and Hellenistic period

Ancient coin of Acarnania, c. 300–167 BC

Because it is located strategically on the maritime route to Italy, Acarnania was involved in many wars. Their hatred against the

Argos Amphilochicum by the Corinthian settlers from Ambracia, about 432 BC. The Acarnanians espoused the cause of the expelled Amphilochians, and in order to obtain the restoration of the latter, they applied for assistance to Athens. The Athenians accordingly sent an expedition under Phormio, who took Argos, expelled the Ambraciots, and restored the town to the Amphilochians and Acarnanians. An alliance was now formally concluded between the Acarnamians and Athenians. The only towns of Acarnania which did not join it were Oeniadae and Astacus
.

The Acarnanians were of great service in maintaining the supremacy of Athens in the western part of Greece, and they distinguished themselves particularly in 426 BC, when they gained a signal victory under the command of

Lacedaemonians (Spartans), who sent an army into Acarnania, commanded by King Agesilaus. The latter ravaged the country, but his expedition was not attended with any lasting consequences,[10] whilst the cities of Acarnania surrendered to the Lacedaemonians under Agesilaus, and continued to be Spartan allies for a time, they joined the Second Athenian League in 375 BC. The Acarnanians later sided with the Boeotians in their fight against Sparta, and with Athens against Philip II of Macedon at Chaeronea
.

After the time of

Thyrreion
was appointed the new capital.

Roman and Byzantine period

Main articles: Epirus (Roman province) and Nicopolis (theme)

In the 1st century BC, Acarnania suffered greatly at the hands of pirates, and in Roman civil wars. When Greece was reduced to the form of a Roman province, it is doubtful whether Acarnania was annexed to the province of Achaea or of Epirus, but it is mentioned at a later time as part of Epirus. The inhabitants of several of its towns were removed by Augustus to Nicopolis, which he founded after the Battle of Actium, and Acarnania fell under that city's rule; and in the time of Augustus emperor the country is described by Strabo as utterly worn out and exhausted.

In 395, it became part of the Eastern Roman Empire. When the empire was attacked by Western powers in the Fourth Crusade (1204), Acarnania passed to the Despotate of Epirus and in 1348 it was conquered by Serbia. Then in 1480 it fell to the Ottoman Empire. Since 1832 it has been part of Greece.

Modern

Main article: Aetolia-Acarnania

Geography

Acarnania is composed of three main regions: 1) a rocky coastline, 2) a rugged strip of mountain range that follows the coastline, and 3) plains lying between these mountains and the Achelous River.

Anciently, Acarnania was reckoned the most westerly province of Greece, bounded on the north by the

Paracheloitis. By the 19th century, the plain was covered with marshes, and the greater part of it appeared to have been formed by the alluvial depositions of the Achelous. Owing to this circumstance, and to the river having frequently altered its channel, the southern part of the coast of Acarnania has undergone numerous changes since antiquity. The chief affluent of the Achelous in Acarnania is the Anapus (Ἄναπος), which flowed into the main stream 80 stadia south of Stratus
.

There are several promontories on the coast, but of these only two are especially named by writers in antiquity, the promontory of

Taphiae Insulae
, lying between Leucas and Acarnania, and Leucas itself, which originally formed part of the mainland of Acarnania, but was afterwards separated from the latter by a canal.

List of Acarnanians

See also

Notes

  1. ^ In the year 239 BC, the Acarnanians, in the embassy which they sent to Rome to solicit assistance, pleaded that they had taken no part in the expedition against Troy, the ancestor of Rome, being the first time probably, as Thirlwall remarks, that they had ever boasted of the omission of their name from the Homeric catalog. Justin, 28.1; Connop Thirlwall, Hist. of Greece, vol. viii. pp. 119 - 120.

References

  1. ISBN 0802036430
    , page 538, "Acarnania on the northern side of the Corinthian gulf was part of Epirus"
  2. ^ Thuc. 2.102.
  3. ^ Encyclopedia of ancient Greece
  4. ^ Thuc. 1.5.
  5. ^ Thuc. 3.105.
  6. ^ Xen., Hellenica 4.6; Thuc. 2.80
  7. ^ Liv. 33.16, 17; Polybius, 28.5.
  8. ^ Thuc. 3.105 et seq.
  9. ^ Thuc. 3.114.
  10. ^ Xen., Hellenica 4.6.
  11. ^ Livy, 33.16-17.
  12. ^ Livy, 36.11-12.
  13. ^ Livy, 45.31.
  14. ^ Pliny the Elder, N. H, 36.19.
  15. ^ Pliny the Elder, N. H, 9.56.

Sources

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1854–1857). "Acarna'nia". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London: John Murray. 38°45′N 21°05′E / 38.750°N 21.083°E / 38.750; 21.083

External links

Media related to Acarnania at Wikimedia Commons

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