This is the place Sung by the ancient masters of the lyre, Where disembodied spirits, ere they left Their earthly mansions, lingered for a time Upon the confines of eternal night, Mourning their doom; and oft the astonished hind, As home he journeyed at the fall of eve, Viewed unknown forms flitting across his path, And in the breeze that waved the sighing boughs Heard shrieks of woe. --HAYGARTH. In Epirus was also situated the celebrated city of Dodo'na, with the temple of that name, where was the most ancient oracle in Greece, whose fame extended even to Asia. But in the wide waste of centuries even the site of this once famous oracle is forgotten. Where, now, Dodona! is thine aged grove, Prophetic fount, and oracle divine? What valley echoes the response of Jove? What trace remaineth of the Thunderer's shrine? All, all forgotten! --BYRON. 3. Acarna'nia.--Coming now to Central Greece, lying northward of the Corinthian Gulf, we find Acarnania on the far west, for the most part a productive country with good harbors: but the Acarnanians, a rude and warlike people, were little inclined to Commercial pursuits; they remained far behind the rest of the Greeks in culture, and scarcely one city of importance was embraced within their territory. 4. Æto'lia, generally a rough and mountainous country, separated, on the west, from Acarnania by the river Ach-e-lo'us, the largest of the rivers of Greece, was inhabited, like Acarnania, by a hardy and warlike race, who long preserved the wild and uncivilized habits of a barbarous age. The river Achelous was intimately connected with the religion and mythology of the Greeks. The hero Hercules contended with the river-god for the hand of De-i-a-ni'ra, the most beautiful woman of his time; and so famous was the stream itself that the Oracle of Dodona gave frequent directions "to sacrifice to the Achelous," whose very name was used, in the language of poetry, as an appellation for the element of water and for rivers. 5. Lo'cris, lying along the Corinthian Gulf east of Ætolia, was inhabited by a wild, uncivilized race, scarcely Hellen'ic in character, and said to have been addicted, from the earliest period, to theft and rapine. Their two principal towns were Amphis'sa and Naupac'tus, the latter now called Lepanto. There was another settlement of the Locri north of Pho'cis and Bœo'tia.