Strabo, Geography

Ephorus denies that they joined the Trojan expedition, for he says that Alcmaeon, the son of Amphiaraüs, made an expedition with Diomedes and the other Epigoni, and had brought to a successful issue the war against the Thebans, and then joined Diomedes and with him took vengeance upon the enemies of Oeneus, after which he himself, first giving over Aetolia to them,¹ passed into Acarnania and subdued it; and meanwhile Agamemnon attacked the Argives and easily prevailed over them, since the most of them had accompanied the army of Diomedes; but a little later, when the expedition against Troy confronted him, he conceived the fear that, when he was absent on the expedition, Diomedes and his army might come back home (and in fact it was reported that a great army had gathered round him) and seize the empire to which they had the best right, for one² was the heir of Adrastus and the other³ of his father;⁴ and accordingly, after thinking this all over, Agamemnon invited them both to resume possession of Argos and to take part in the war; and although Diomedes was persuaded to take part in the expedition, Alcmaeon was vexed and refused to heed the invitation; and for this reason the Acarnanians alone refused to share in the expedition with the Greeks. And it was probably by following this account that the Acarnanians tricked the Romans, as they are said to have done, and obtained from them their autonomy, urging that they alone had had no part in the expedition against the ancestors of the Romans, for they were named neither in the Aetolian catalogue⁵ nor separately, and in fact their name was not mentioned in the Epic poems at all.