Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

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Naupactus

（Ναύπακτος). The modern Lepanto; an ancient town of the Locri Ozolae, near the promontory Antirrhium, possessing the best harbor on the northern coast of the Corinthian Gulf. It is said to have derived its name from the Heraclidae having here built the fleet with which they crossed over to the Peloponnesus (from ναῦς + πήγνυμι) (Apollod. ii.7.2). After the Persian Wars it fell into the power of the Athenians, who settled here the Messenians who had been compelled to leave their country at the end of the Third Messenian War, B.C. 455. During the Peloponnesian War it was the military base of the Athenians in their operations against Western Greece (Thuc.i. 103; ii. 83). In later times, Philip of Macedon assigned it to Aetolia, and the Romans to Locris (Livy, xxxvi. 30).