Amphilochus, being dissatisfied with the state of things in Argos on his return from Troy, emigrated from his native place, and founded a city of the same name on the Ambraciot Gulf and the whole region of Amphilochia.
He contrasts the “Greek Ambrakiotes” with the “barbarian Amphilochians”, but he leaves no doubt that the criterion on which their distinction is based is language,[3] and perhaps culture.
According to him, “at that time they [the inhabitants of Amphilochian Argos] first became hellenized, regarding their present language, by their Ambraciot fellow settlers.”[5] He had similar views of the neighboring Aetolians and Acarnanians, even though the evidence leaves no doubt that they were Greek.
The Athenians accordingly sent a force under Phormio, who took Argos, sold the Ambraciots as slaves, and restored the town to the Amphilochians and Acarnanians, both of whom now concluded an alliance with Athens.
In 430 BCE the Ambraciots, anxious to recover the lost town, marched against Argos, but were unable to take it, and retired, after laying waste its territory.
Demosthenes, who had been invited by the Acarnanians to take the command of their troops, shortly afterward arrived in the Ambraciot Gulf with 20 Athenian ships, and anchored near Olpae.
The two armies were separated only by a deep ravine: and as the ground was favourable for ambush, Demosthenes hid some men in a bushy dell, so that they might attack the rear of the enemy.
The Ambraciots had obtained no intelligence of the defeat of their comrades at Olpae, or of the approach of Demosthenes; they were surprised in their sleep, and put to the sword without any possibility of resistance.
[17] William Martin Leake, writing in the 19th century placed it in the plain of Vlikha, at the modern village of Neokhori, where are the ruins of an ancient city, the walls of which were about a mile (1.6 km) in circumference.