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Naupactus (Italian, Lepanto; modern Greek, Epakto), is a town in the
nomarchy of Acarnania and Aetolia,
Greece, situated on a bay on the north side of the straits of Lepanto. The harbour,
once the best on the northern coast of the Corinthian Gulf, is now
almost entirely choked up, and is accessible only to the smallest craft. Naupactus is an episcopal see. In Greek legend it
appears as the place where the Heraclidae built a fleet to invade the Peloponnesus.
In historical times it belonged to the Ozolian Locrians; but about 455 BC, in spite
of a partial resettlement with Locrians of Opus, it fell to the Athenians, who peopled it with Messenian refugees and made it
their chief naval station in western Greece during the Peloponnesian
war. In 404 it was restored to the Locrians, who subsequently lost it to the
Achaeans, but recovered it through Epaminondas.
Philip II of Macedon gave Naupactus to the Aetolians,
who held it till 191 BC, when after an obstinate siege it was surrendered to the
Romans. It was still flourishing about 170 AD, but in Justinian's reign was destroyed by an earthquake. In the middle ages it fell into the hands of the Venetians, who fortified it so strongly that in 1477 it
successfully resisted a four month's siege by a Turkish army thirty
thousand strong; in 1499, however, it was taken by Beyazid II. The mouth of the Gulf of Lepanto was the scene of the great sea fight in which the naval power of Turkey was for the time
being destroyed by the united papal, Spanish and Venetian forces (Battle of Lepanto, October 7, 1571). In 1678 it was recaptured by the Venetians, but was again restored in 1699, by the treaty of Karlowitz to
the Turks; in the war of independence it finally became Greek once more (March 1829).
This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopędia Britannica.
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