Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/81

 ABTOUA. it itffm^ oa aceouit of thetr kgendaiy raiown, mi putlj OB. aooonnt of their acknowledged ooo- OMtMi vitli the EkftDs in Pelopomieeiis. £ach of tlww tlu«e diTisioos ms sabdiTided into several viflage tnbea. Their villages were nnfortifiod, and Dostoftheinhabitanta lived by pliioder. Their tribes appetf to haxe been independent of each other, and s wu only in drcnmstances of common danger tbat thej acted in concert. The inhabitants of the iuUnd momitaiTMi were brave, active, and invin- cMcl TImj were nnrivalled in the use of the jpvfia, for which thej are celebrated by Euripides. (AtMaua. 139, 140; camp. Thnc iiL 97.) The Apodoti, Ophionenses, and Eniytanes, in- Ubited only the central districts of Aetolia, and Al not occupy any part of the phun between the Etvims and the Acbekoa, which waa the abode of the BMxe civilized part of the nation, who bore no tther aame than that of Aetolians. The Apodoti (*A«AvrM, Thnc. liL 94; *Air<{5(rro(, Pol. xvii 5) inh<hitnd the moontains above 'Nanpactus, on the honicfs of Locria. They are said by Polybins not lo have been HeDenes. (Gomp. liv. zxziL 34.) North of then dwelt the Ophionenses or Ophienses CO^mims, Thnc L e.; 'O^iclr, Strsb. pp.451,465), aad to thm bdonged the smaller tribes of the Bomi- OMM (B«^f, Thnc iii. 96; Strab. p. 451 ; StepL ^iL&r.BiiyioOaDd Callieo8e6(KaAAiirt,Thac 2.e.), both of which inhabited the ridge of Oeta running Am towaida the Malic gnlf : the fiinner are placed by SCrabo (L e.) at the aonroes of the Evenus, and ttw position of tiie latter is fixed by that of their c^iital town Callimn. [Cajjjvm,] The Eury- taaes (£iynrrSrcf, Thnc. iii. 94, et alii) dwelt BHth of the Ophionenses, as far, apparently, as Mt. Tyaipfafestos, at the foot of which was the town Ctothalia, which Strabo describes as a place belong- ing to tUs peopleL They are said to have possessed aa oEBcle of Odyaeens. (Strab. pp. 448, 45 1, 465 ; SchoLarfZ^oopJb-. 799.) The Agraci, who inhabited the north-west comer if Aelalia, bordering upon Ambncia, were not a fifirionof the Aetolian nation. but aseparato people, gw e iu e d at the ti|pe of the Pdoponnesian war by a kiag of thdr own, and only united to Aetolia at a hser period. The Aperanti, who lived in the same firtrirt, appear to have been a subdivision of the [AoBAKi; Afebaivtl] Pliny(iv. 3) men- vwions other peoples as belonging to Aetolia, sack as the Athamanea, Tymphaei, Dolopes, &c.; Vat this statement is only true of the later period of the Aetolian T<eagiie, when the Aetolians had ex- tended their dominion over most of the neighbouring trifaeB of Epima and Thessaly. At the eommencement of the Pdoponnesian war the Aetofians had formed no alliance either with Sparta or Athens, and consequently are not men- ifeaKd by Thucydides (iL 9) in his enumeration of the alhed fincea of the two nations. It was the BBprovoked invasion of their country by the Atbe- in the sixth year of the war (b. c. 455), led them to esponse the Lacedaemonian side. la this year the Mesisenians, who had been settled St Hsnpactos by the Athenians, and who had suf- faed greatly fimn the inroads of the Aetolians, the Athenian general, Demosthenes, to into the interior of Aetolia, with the hope of the three great tribes of the Apodoti, OjAiananaes, and Eorytanes, since if they were sahdaed the Atheniana would become masters of the vhofe coontry between the Ambracian gulf and AETOLIA 65 Parnassus. Having collected a considerBble force, Demosthenes set out from Naupactns; but the ex- pedition proved a complete failure. After advancing a few miles into the interior, he was attacked at Aegitium by the whole fim» of the Aetolians, who had occupied the adjacent hills. The rugged nature of the ground prevented the Athenian hoplites from coming to close quarters with their active foe ; De- mosthenes had with him only a small number of light-armed troops; and in the end the Athenians were completoly defeated, and fled in disorder to the coast. Shortly afterwards the Aetolians joined the Peloponnesians under Euiylochus in making an attack upon Naupactus, which Demosthenes saved with difficulty, by the help of the Acamanians. (Thuc iii. 94, &c.) The Aetolians took no further part in the Peloponnesian war; for those of the na- ti<ni who fought under the Athenians in ^dly were only mercenaries. (Thuc. viL 57.) From this time tin that of the Macedonian supremacy, we find scarody any mention of the Aetolians. They ap- pear to have been frequently engaged in hostilities with their neighbours and andent enemies, the Acamanians. [Acarnania.] After the death of Alexander the Great (b. c. 323) the Aetolians joined the confederate Greeks in what is usually called the Lamian war. This war was brought to a dose by the defeat of the confe- derates at Grannon (b.g. 322); whereupon Anti- pater and Craterus, having first made peace with Athens, invaded Aetolia with a huge army. The Aetolians, however, instead of yielding to the in- vaders, abandoned their villages in the plains and retired to their impr^;nable mountains, where they renuuned in safety, till the Macedonian generals were obliged to evacuate thdr territory in order to march against Perdiccas. (Diod. xviiL 24, 25.) In the wars which followed between the different usurpers of the Macedonian throne, the alliance of the Aetolians was eagerly courted by the contending armies; and their brave and warlike population enabled them to exercise great influence upon the politics of Greece. The prominent part they took in the expuldon of the -Gauls from Greece (b. c. 279) still further increased their reputation. In the army which the Greeks assembled at Thermo- pylae to oppose the Gauls, the contingent of the Aetolians was by far the krgest, and they here dis- tinguished themselves by their bravery in repulsing the attacks of the enemy; but they earned thdr chief glory by destroying the greater part of a body of 40,000 Gauls, who had invaded their country, and had taken the town of Gallium, and committed the most horrible atrodties on the inhabitante. The Aetolians also assisted in the defence of Delphi when it was attacked by the Gauls, and in the pursuit of the enemy in their retreat (Pans. x. 20 — 23.) To conunemorate the vengeance they had inflicted upon the Gauls for the destruction of Callimn, the Aetolians dedicated at Delphi a trophy and a statue of an armed heroine, representing Aetolia. They also dedicated in the same temple the statues of the generals tmder whom they had fought in this war. (Paus. X. 18. § 7, X. 15. § 2.) From this time the Aetolmns appear as one of the three great powers in Greece, the other two bdng the >Iacedomans and Achaeans. Like the Achocans, the Aetolians were united in a confederacy or league. At what time this league was first formed is uncertain. It is inferred that the Aeto- lians must have been united into some form of con^