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 gulf of Ambracian Gulf, who were barbarian or non-Hellenic nations. Like other rude mountaineers, the Acarnanians are praised for their fidelity and courage. They formed good light-armed troops, and were excellent slingers. They lived, for the most part, dispersed in villages, retiring, when attacked, to the mountains. Strabo relates that they were united, however, in a political League (the Acarnanian League), of which Aristotle wrote an account in a work now lost (). 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. The meetings of the League were usually held at Stratus, which was the chief town in Acarnania; but, in the time of the Romans, the meetings took place either at Thyrium, or at Leucas, the latter of which places became, at that time, the chief city in Acarnania.