History of The Peloponnesian War - Book III   

were attacked by the Syracusans from the fort, and a large part of
their army routed with great slaughter. After this, Laches and the
Athenians from the ships made some descents in Locris, and defeating
the Locrians, who came against them with Proxenus, son of Capaton,
upon the river Caicinus, took some arms and departed.
The same winter the Athenians purified Delos, in compliance, it
appears, with a certain oracle. It had been purified before by
Pisistratus the tyrant; not indeed the whole island, but as much of it
as could be seen from the temple. All of it was, however, now purified
in the following way. All the sepulchres of those that had died in
Delos were taken up, and for the future it was commanded that no one
should be allowed either to die or to give birth to a child in the
island; but that they should be carried over to Rhenea, which is so
near to Delos that Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, having added Rhenea to
his other island conquests during his period of naval ascendancy,
dedicated it to the Delian Apollo by binding it to Delos with a chain.
The Athenians, after the purification, celebrated, for the first
time, the quinquennial festival of the Delian games. Once upon a time,
indeed, there was a great assemblage of the Ionians and the
neighbouring islanders at Delos, who used to come to the festival,
as the Ionians now do to that of Ephesus, and athletic and poetical
contests took place there, and the cities brought choirs of dancers.
Nothing can be clearer on this point than the following verses of
Homer, taken from a hymn to Apollo:

Phoebus, wherever thou strayest, far or near,
Delos was still of all thy haunts most dear.
Thither the robed Ionians take their way
With wife and child to keep thy holiday,
Invoke thy favour on each manly game,
And dance and sing in honour of thy name.

That there was also a poetical contest in which the Ionians went
to contend, again is shown by the following, taken from the same hymn.
After celebrating the Delian dance of the women, he ends his song of
praise with these verses, in which he also alludes to himself:

Well, may Apollo keep you all! and so,
Sweethearts, good-bye- yet tell me not I go
Out from your hearts; and if in after hours
Some other wanderer in this world of ours
Touch at your shores, and ask your maidens here
Who sings the songs the sweetest to your ear,
Think of me then, and answer with a smile,
'A blind old man of Scio's rocky isle.'

Homer thus attests that there was anciently a great assembly and
festival at Delos. In later times, although the islanders and the
Athenians continued to send the choirs of dancers with sacrifices, the
contests and most of the ceremonies were abolished, probably through
adversity, until the Athenians celebrated the games upon this occasion
with the novelty of horse-races.
The same winter the Ambraciots, as they had promised Eurylochus when
they retained his army, marched out against Amphilochian Argos with
three thousand heavy infantry, and invading the Argive territory
occupied Olpae, a stronghold on a hill near the sea, which had been
formerly fortified by the Acarnanians and used as the place of assizes
for their nation, and which is about two miles and three-quarters from
the city of Argos upon the sea-coast. Meanwhile the Acarnanians went
with a part of their forces to the relief of Argos, and with the
rest encamped in Amphilochia at the place called Crenae, or the Wells,
to watch for Eurylochus and his Peloponnesians, and to prevent their
passing through and effecting their junction with the Ambraciots;
while they also sent for Demosthenes, the commander of the Aetolian