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.

[4] The settlements of Alyzeia, Coronta, Limnaea, Medion, Oeniadae, Palaerus, 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 Agraeans and Amphilochians on the Ambracian Gulf, who were barbarian or non-Hellenic nations.

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.

[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.

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.

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.

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 Demosthenes over the Peloponnesians and Ambraciots at the Battle of Olpae.

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.

[12] In the settlement of the affairs of Greece by Aemilius Paulus and the Roman commissioners after the defeat of Perseus (168 BC), Leucas was separated from Acarnania,[13] and the city of Thyrreion was appointed the new capital.

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.

Anciently, Acarnania was reckoned the most westerly province of Greece, bounded on the north by the Ambracian Gulf, on the northeast by Amphilochia, on the west and southwest by the Ionian Sea, and on the east by Aetolia.

The chief river of the country is the Achelous, which in the lower part of its course flows through a vast plain of great natural fertility, called after itself the Paracheloitis.

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.