13.-THEIR FUNCTIONS.

The duties of these deputies are very difficult to determine. According to one author, who gives as his authority Suidas (Ad Voc.), these were respectively entrusted with the religious and civil concerns of their constituents. Thirlwall says that the latter (the Pylagora) was the body entrusted with the power of voting, while the office of the former (the Hieromnemones) consisted in preparing and directing their deliberations, and carrying their decrees into effect. Grote says that the twelve members of the League sent sacred deputies, including a chief, called the Hieromnemon, and subordinates called the Pylagoræ (II. 248). Dr. Abbott ("A History of Greece," p. 28) says: "The deputies were themselves of two classes, the Hieromnemones and the Pylagori. The first were chosen by lot, twenty-four in number; one for each of the twenty-four votes, which they alone were competent to give. The Pylagori, on the other hand, whose number was not fixed, were orators elected for the especial purpose of supporting the interests of their States by their eloquence or skill in debate. The Hieromnemones formed the Assembly in the stricter sense, but they could call the Pylagori before them, and occasionally they summoned a universal Assembly of all the members of the tribes present at the time. But neither the Pylagori nor the Assembly could reverse the decision of the Hieromnemones." Dr. Oscar Seyffert says that, "besides protecting and preserving their two common sanctuaries, and celebrating, from the year 586 B.C. onwards, the Pythian Games, the League was bound to maintain certain principles of international right," and that, when violations of the sanctuaries or of popular right took place, the Assembly could inflict fines or even expulsion, and that a State that would not submit to the punishment had a "holy war" declared against it.

14. THE OATH.

The original objects, or at least, the character of the institution, seems to be faithfully expressed in the terms of the oath preserved by Æschines, which bound the Members of the League not to destroy any Amphictyonic town, not to cut off any

Amphictyonic town from running water, but to punish to the utmost of their power those who committed such outrages; and if any one should plunder the property of the god, or should be cognizant thereof, or should take treacherous counsel against the things in the temple, to punish him with foot and hand and voice and by every means in their power.

"Je jure," disait chaque député, "de ne jamais détruire aucune des villes du corps des Amphictyons, de ne pas détourner le lit des fleuves, et de ne pas empêcher l'usage de leurs eaux courantes ni en temps de paix ni en temps de guerre. Et si quelque peuple enfreint cette loi, je lui déclarerai la guerre et je détruirai ses villes. Que si quelqu'un pille les richesses du dieu, ou se rend complice en quelque manière de ceux qui toucheront aux choses sacrées, ou les aide de ses conseils, je m'emploierai à en tirer vengeance de mes pieds, de mes mains, de ma voix et de toutes mes forces." (Calvo, 3rd Ed., I. 622.)

15.- VOTING.

Each had

The constitution of the Council rested on the theory of a perfect equality among the tribes represented by it. Each tribe had two votes in the deliberations of the Congress. originally only one, but with the growth of the Ionians and Dorians, and the division of Locris into two sections, it became necessary to make a change. The original vote was therefore doubled (or split) so that each tribe which remained solid had two votes, but in the case of those which were divided, one vote was assigned to each of the two sections.

were

16. DECISIONS.

The decisions of the Council, says Lempriere ("Class. Dict."), held sacred and inviolable, and even arms were taken up to enforce them." When violations of the sanctuaries, or of popular right, took place, the Assembly could inflict fines, or even expulsion, and a State that would not submit to the punishment had a "holy war" declared against it. Such a war was dreaded even in Athens: "You are bringing war into Attica, Æschines," was the taunt of Demosthenes, "an Amphictyonic war." The

Council had no organised means of enforcing its decrees; still it always had partisans, who undertook the duty.

17. LATER HISTORY.

By such a war, for instance, the Phocians were expelled(B.c. 346), and their two votes given to the Macedonians; but the expulsion of the former was withdrawn because of the glorious part they took in defending the Delphian temple when threatened by the Gauls in 279 B.C., and at the same time the Ætolian community which had already made itself master of the sanctuary was acknowledged as a new member of the League. The decree against Phocis was carried out by Philip of Macedon. That the institution by this time had lost its original character and become a political instrument is shown by the fact that a Council summoned by Philip, numbering 200, ratified all his transactions and declared the kingdom of Macedon the principal member of the Hellenic body.

Two years later (344 B.C.) Philip procured a decree of the Amphictyonic Council, requiring him to check the insolence of Sparta and to protect the defenceless communities which had so often been the victims of her tyranny and cruelty; and in 339 B C. Philip was appointed general of the Amphictyonic forces.

In 191 B.C. the number of members amounted to seventeen, who, nevertheless, had only twenty-four votes, seven having two votes each, the rest only one.

Under the Roman rule the League continued to exist, but its action was now limited to the care of the Delphian temple. It was reorganised by Augustus, who incorporated the Malians, Magnetians, Ænianes and Pythians with the Thessalians, and substituted for the extinct Dolopes the city of Nicopolis in Acarnania, which he had founded after the battle of Actium. The last notice we find of the League is in the 2nd century A.D.

18.-COUNCIL NOT A NATIONAL ASSEMBLY.

The Amphictyonic Council, says Abbott (Part II., 29), was not a national assembly; it neither conducted the policy of Greece, nor had it power to settle disputes between great cities.

Nor was the Association national in the sense that it included the whole of Greece. Freeman says that the Amphictyonic Council represented Greece as an Ecclesiastical Synod represented Western Christendom, not as a Swiss Diet or an American Congress represents the Federation of which it is the common legislature (Hist. of Fed. Gov., p. 98), but he is careful to add (p. 102), "The Amphictyons were a religious body, but they were not a clerical body"; that is, they were not officially a religious body. There is nothing to indicate that it in any sense corresponded to what is known as a Tribunal of Arbitration, or that the principle of Arbitration was applied or even recognised by it.

19.-BUT A PEACE ORGANISATION.

The Association, says Abbott, was as powerless as any other to prevent strife and bloodshed among the members, some of whom, such as the Phocians and Thessalians, were deadly enemies. But a number of adjacent tribes could not meet together twice a year to share in a common sacrifice, and, it might be added, to discuss common interests, without feeling that they were united by a peculiar tie. This feeling was shown in the oath. And the oath was not wholly without effect; it marked a departure from the savage warfare depicted in the Homeric poems, and it supplied the Greeks with an ideal, which was present to their minds, even when they failed to act up to it. The political philosophers of the fourth century, when regulating the practice of war among the Greeks, proceeded on the lines laid down in the Amphictyonic oath. The Hellenes were to quarrel "as those who intend some day to be reconciled"; they were to "use friendly correction," and "not to devastate Hellas, or burn houses, or think that the whole population of a city, men, women and children, were equally their enemies, and therefore to be destroyed." (Abbott, Part II., p. 20.)

20. AND AN EFFECTIVE ONE.

Historians deplore the fact that the Amphictyonic Council seldom had the ability to execute its sentences, and therefore

pronounce it "almost powerless for good" and even mischievous. But Professor Curtius gives expression to a juster estimate of its influence, which even others cannot wholly overlook. "The terms of the Amphictyonic oath," he says, "are first attempts at procuring admission for the principles of humanity in a land filled with border feuds. There is as yet no question of putting an end to the state of war, still less of combining for united action; an attempt is merely made to induce a group of States to regard themselves as belonging together, and on the ground of this feeling to recognise mutual obligations, and in the case of inevitable feuds at all events, mutually to refrain from extreme measures of force."

But the action of the Council as a factor in Greek life, existing as it did from the earliest ages to the second century A.D., was even more influential.

"In case of dispute between the Amphictyones, a judicial authority was wanted to preserve the common peace, or punish its violation in the name of the god. But the insignificant beginning of common annual festivals gradually came to transform the whole of public life; the constant carrying of arms was given up, intercourse was rendered safe, and the sanctity of temples and altars recognised. And the most important result of all was, that the members of the Amphictyony learnt to regard themselves as one united body against those standing outside it; out of a number of tribes arose a nation which required a common name to distinguish it and its political and religious system from all other tribes. And the federal name fixed upon by common consent was that of Hellenes, which, in the place of the earlier appellation of Graeci, continued to extend its significance with every step by which the federation advanced. The connection of this new national name with the Amphictyon is manifest from the circumstance that the Greeks conceived Hellen and Amphictyon, the mythical representatives of their nationality and fraternal union of race, as nearly related to and connected with one another." (Curtius, "History of Greece," Vol. I., 116, 117.)