Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/298

 l82 EXPEDITION INTO ACARNANIA [ll the Acarnanians, were their persistent enemies, was un- approachable in winter. For the town Oentadae was inac- ■ • ., -i^r ur ju .,,, w, IS in the midst of a marsh formed by cessible, owing to the _ _■' flooding of the Ache- the river Achelous, which, rising in loiis. opposite to the Mount Pindus and passing first through town lie the Echinades,. , . ^^, ti' a islands formed by the ^^^ territory of the Dolopians, Agrae- diposits of the river, ans, and Amphilochians, and then Here Alcmaeon, after through the Acarnanian plain, at some thetimrderofhisniothcr, ,. ^ r •■ j.i. n u j.u ■it^i,. f^ i^ distance from its mouth Hows by the ts satd to have found a _ _ •' home which was indi- city of Stratus and finds an exit into the cated to him by the gg^ near Oeniadae : an expedition in oiace of po o. -yvinter is thus rendered impossible by the water. Most of the islands called Echinades are situated opposite to Oeniadae and close to the mouth of the Ache- lous. The consequence is that the river, which is large, is always silting up : some of the islands have been already joined to the mainland, and very likely, at no distant period, they may all be joined to it. The stream is wide and strong and full of mud ; and the islands are close together and serve to connect the deposits made by the river, not allowing them to dissolve in the water. For, lying irregu- larly and not one behind the other, they prevent the river from finding a straight channel into the sea. These islands are small and uninhabited. The story is that when Alcmaeon the son of Amphiaraus was wandering over the earth after the murder of his mother, he was told by Apollo that here he should find a home, the oracle intimating that he would never obtain deliverance from his terrors until he discovered some country which was not yet in existence and not seen by the sun at the time when he slew his mother ; there he might settle, but the rest of the earth was accursed to him. He knew not what to do, until at last, according to the story, he spied the deposit of earth made by the Achelous, and he thought that a place sufficient to support life must have accumulated in the long time during which he had been wandering since his mother's death. There, near Oeniadae, he settled, and, becoming