from the smallest beginnings, gradually expanded into so comprehensive a
character, had acquired so marked a predominance over the rest, as to be
called the "Amphictyonic assembly," and even to have been mistaken by
some authors for a sort of federal Hellenic diet. Twelve sub-races, out
of the number which made up entire Hellas, belonged to this ancient
Amphictyony, the meetings of which were held twice in every year: in
spring at the temple of Apollo at Delphi; in autumn at Thermopylæ, in
the sacred precinct of Demeter Amphictyonis. Sacred deputies, including
a chief called the _Hieromnemon_ and subordinates called the _Pylagoræ_,
attended at these meetings from each of the twelve races: a crowd of
volunteers seem to have accompanied them, for purposes of sacrifice,
trade, or enjoyment. Their special, and most important, function
consisted in watching over the Delphian temple, in which all the twelve
sub-races had a joint interest, and it was the immense wealth and
national ascendency of this temple which enhanced to so great a pitch
the dignity of its acknowledged administrators.
The twelve constituent members were as follows: Thessalians, Boeotians,
Dorians, Ionians, Perrhæbians, Magnetes, Locrians, Oetæans, Achæans,
Phocians, Dolopes, and Malians. All are counted as _races_ (if we treat
the Hellenes as a race, we must call these _sub-races_), no mention
being made of cities: all count equally in respect to voting, two votes
being given by the deputies from each of the twelve: moreover, we are
told that in determining the deputies to be sent or the manner in which
the votes of each race should be given, the powerful Athens, Sparta, and
Thebes had no more influence than the humblest Ionian, Dorian, or
Boeotian city. This latter fact is distinctly stated by Æschines,
himself a Pylagore sent to Delphi by Athens. And so, doubtless, the
theory of the case stood: the votes of the Ionic races counted for
neither more nor less than two, whether given by deputies from Athens,
or from the small towns of Erythræ and Priene; and in like manner the
Dorian votes were as good in the division, when given by deputies from
Boeon and Cytinion in the little territory of Doris, as if the men
delivering them had been Spartans. But there can be as little question
that in practice the little Ionic cities and the little Doric cities
pretended to no share in the Amphictyonic deliberations. As the Ionic
vote came to be substantially the vote of Athens, so, if Sparta was ever
obstructed in the management of the Doric vote, it must have been by
powerful Doric cities like Argos or Corinth, not by the insignificant
towns of Doris. But the theory of Amphictyonic suffrage as laid down by
Æschines, however little realized in practice during his day, is
important inasmuch as it shows in full evidence the primitive and
original constitution. The first establishment of the Amphictyonic
convocation dates from a time when all the twelve members were on a
footing of equal independence, and when there were no overwhelming
cities--such as Sparta and Athens--to cast in the shade the humbler
members; when Sparta was only one Doric city, and Athens only one Ionic
city, among various others of consideration not much inferior.
There are also other proofs which show the high antiquity of this
Amphictyonic convocation. Æschines gives us an extract from the oath
which had been taken by the sacred deputies who attended on behalf of
their respective races, ever since its first establishment, and which
still apparently continued to be taken in his day. The antique
simplicity of this oath, and of the conditions to which the members bind
themselves, betrays the early age in which it originated, as well as the
humble resources of those towns to which it was applied. "We will not
destroy any Amphictyonic town--we will not cut off any Amphictyonic town
from running water"--such are the two prominent obligations which
Æschines specifies out of the old oath. The second of the two carries us
back to the simplest state of society, and to towns of the smallest
size, when the maidens went out with their basins to fetch water from
the spring, like the daughters of Celeos at Eleusis, or those of Athens
from the fountain Callirrhoe. We may even conceive that the special
mention of this detail, in the covenant between the twelve races, is
borrowed literally from agreements still earlier, among the villages or
little towns in which the members of each race were distributed. At any
rate, it proves satisfactorily the very ancient date to which the
commencement of the Amphictyonic convocations must be referred. The
belief of Æschines (perhaps also the belief general in his time) was,
that it commenced simultaneously with the first foundation of the
Delphian temple--an event of which we have no historical knowledge; but
there seems reason to suppose that its original establishment is
connected with Thermopylæ and Demeter Amphictyonia, rather than with
Delphi and Apollo. The special surname by which Demeter and her temple
at Thermopylæ was known--the temple of the hero Amphictyon which stood
at its side--the word _Pyloea_, which obtained footing in the language
to designate the half-yearly meeting of the deputies both at Thermopylæ
and at Delphi--these indications point to Thermopylæ (the real central
point for all the twelve) as the primary place of meeting, and to the
Delphian half-year as something secondary and superadded. On such a
matter, however, we cannot go beyond a conjecture.
The hero Amphictyon, whose temple stood at Thermopylæ, passed in
mythical genealogy for the brother of Hellen. And it may be affirmed,
with truth, that the habit of forming Amphictyonic unions, and of
frequenting each other's religious festivals, was the great means of
creating and fostering the primitive feeling of brotherhood among the
children of Hellen, in those early times when rudeness, insecurity, and
pugnacity did so much to isolate them. A certain number of salutary
habits and sentiments, such as that which the Amphictyonic oath
embodies, in regard to abstinence from injury as well as to mutual
protection, gradually found their way into men's minds: the obligations
thus brought into play acquired a substantive efficacy of their own, and
the religious feeling which always remained connected with them, came
afterward to be only one out of many complex agencies by which the later
historical Greek was moved. Athens and Sparta in the days of their
might, and the inferior cities in relation to them, played each their
own political game, in which religious considerations will be found to
bear only a subordinate part.
The special function of the Amphictyonic council, so far as we know it,
consisted in watching over the safety, the interests, and the treasures
of the Delphian temple. "If any one shall plunder the property of the
god, or shall be cognizant thereof, or shall take treacherous counsel
against the things in the temple, we will punish him with foot, and
hand, and voice, and by every means in our power." So ran the old
Amphictyonic oath, with an energetic imprecation attached to it. And
there are some examples in which the council constitutes its functions
so largely as to receive and adjudicate upon complaints against entire
cities, for offences against the religious and patriotic sentiment of
the Greeks generally. But for the most part its interference relates
directly to the Delphian temple. The earliest case in which it is
brought to our view is the Sacred War against Cirrha, in the 46th
Olympiad or B.C. 595, conducted by Eurolychus the Thessalian, and
Clisthenes of Sicyon, and proposed by Solon of Athens: we find the
Amphictyons also about half a century afterward undertaking the duty of
collecting subscriptions throughout the Hellenic world, and making the
contract with the Alcmæonids for rebuilding the temple after a
conflagration. But the influence of this council is essentially of a
fluctuating and intermittent character. Sometimes it appears forward to
decide, and its decisions command respect; but such occasions are rare,
taking the general course of known Grecian history; while there are
other occasions, and those too especially affecting the Delphian temple,
on which we are surprised to find nothing said about it. In the long and
perturbed period which Thucydides describes, he never once mentions the
Amphictyons, though the temple and the safety of its treasures form the
repeated subject as well of dispute as of express stipulation between
Athens and Sparta. Moreover, among the twelve constituent members of the
council, we find three--the Perrhæbians, the Magnetes, and the Achæans
of Phthia--who were not even independent, but subject to the
Thessalians; so that its meetings, when they were not matters of mere
form, probably expressed only the feelings of the three or four leading
members. When one or more of these great powers had a party purpose to
accomplish against others--when Philip of Macedon wished to extrude one
of the members in order to procure admission for himself--it became
convenient to turn this ancient form into a serious reality; and we
shall see the Athenian Æschines providing a pretext for Philip to meddle
in favor of the minor Boeotian cities against Thebes, by alleging that
these cities were under the protection of the old Amphictyonic oath.
It is thus that we have to consider the council as an element in Grecian
affairs--an ancient institution, one among many instances of the
primitive habit of religious fraternization, but wider and more
comprehensive than the rest; at first purely religious, then religious
and political at once, lastly more the latter than the former; highly
valuable in the infancy, but unsuited to the maturity of Greece, and
called into real working only on rare occasions, when its efficiency
happened to fall in with the views of Athens, Thebes, or the king of
Macedon. In such special moments it shines with a transient light which
affords a partial pretense for the imposing title bestowed on it by
Cicero--_commune Græciæ concilium;_ but we should completely
misinterpret Grecian history if we regarded it as a federal council
habitually directed or habitually obeyed. Had there existed any such
"commune concilium" of tolerable wisdom and patriotism, and had the
tendencies of the Hellenic mind been capable of adapting themselves to
it, the whole course of later Grecian history would probably have been
altered; the Macedonian kings would have remained only as respectable
neighbors, borrowing civilization from Greece and expending their
military energies upon Thracians and Illyrians; while united Hellas
might even have maintained her own territory against the conquering
legions of Rome.
The twelve constituent Amphictyonic races remained unchanged until the
Sacred War against the Phocians (B.C. 355), after which, though the
number twelve was continued, the Phocians were disfranchised, and their
votes transferred to Philip of Macedon. It has been already mentioned
that these twelve did not exhaust the whole of Hellas. Arcadians,
Eleans, Pisans, Minyæ, Dryopes, Ætolians, all genuine Hellenes, are not
comprehended in it; but all of them had a right to make use of the
temple of Delphi, and to contend in the Pythian and Olympic games. The
Pythian games, celebrated near Delphi, were under the superintendence of
the Amphictyons, or of some acting magistrate chosen by and presumed to
represent them. Like the Olympic games, they came round every four years
(the interval between one celebration and another being four complete
years, which the Greeks called a _Pentæteris_): the Isthmian and Nemean
games recurred every two years. In its first humble form a competition
among bards to sing a hymn in praise of Apollo, this festival was
doubtless of immemorial antiquity; but the first extension of it into
pan-Hellenic notoriety (as I have already remarked), the first
multiplication of the subjects of competition, and the first
introduction of a continuous record of the conquerors, date only from
the time when it came under the presidency of the Amphictyon, at the
close of the Sacred War against Cirrha, What is called the first Pythian
contest coincides with the third year of the 48th Olympiad, or B.C. 585.
From that period forward the games become crowded and celebrated: but
the date just named, nearly two centuries after the first Olympiad, is a
proof that the habit of periodical frequentation of festivals, by
numbers and from distant parts, grew up but slowly in the Grecian world.
The foundation of the temple of Delphi itself reaches far beyond all
historical knowledge, forming one of the aboriginal institutions of
Hellas. It is a sanctified and wealthy place even in the _Iliad_; the
legislation of Lycurgus at Sparta is introduced under its auspices, and
the earliest Grecian colonies, those of Sicily and Italy in the eighth
century B.C., are established in consonance with its mandate. Delphi and
Dodona appear, in the most ancient circumstances of Greece, as
universally venerated oracles and sanctuaries: and Delphi not only
receives honors and donations, but also answers questions from Lydians,
Phrygians, Etruscans, Romans, etc.: it is not exclusively Hellenic. One
of the valuable services which a Greek looked for from this and other
great religious establishments was, that it should resolve his doubts in
cases of perplexity; that it should advise him whether to begin a new,
or to persist in an old project; that it should foretell what would be
his fate under given circumstances, and inform him, if suffering under
distress, on what conditions the gods would grant him relief.
The three priestesses of Dodona with their venerable oak, and the
priestess of Delphi sitting on her tripod under the influence of a
certain gas or vapor exhaling from the rock, were alike competent to
determine these difficult points: and we shall have constant occasion to
notice in this history with what complete faith both the question was
put and the answer treasured up--what serious influence it often
exercised both upon public and private proceeding. The hexameter verses
in which the Pythian priestess delivered herself were indeed often so
equivocal or unintelligible, that the most serious believer, with all
anxiety to interpret and obey them, often found himself ruined by the
result. Yet the general faith in the oracle was no way shaken by such
painful experience. For as the unfortunate issue always admitted of
being explained upon two hypotheses--either that the god had spoken
falsely, or that his meaning had not been correctly understood--no man
of genuine piety ever hesitated to adopt the latter. There were many
other oracles throughout Greece besides Delphi and Dodona; Apollo was
open to the inquiries of the faithful at Ptoon in Boeotia, at Abæ in
Phocis, at Branchidæ near Miletus, at Patara in Lycia, and other places:
in like manner, Zeus gave answers at Olympia, Poseidon at Tænarus,
Amphiaraus at Thebes, Amphilochus at Mallus, etc. And this habit of
consulting the oracle formed part of the still more general tendency of
the Greek mind to undertake no enterprise without having first
ascertained how the gods viewed it, and what measures they were likely
to take. Sacrifices were offered, and the interior of the victim
carefully examined, with the same intent: omens, prodigies, unlooked-for
coincidences, casual expressions, etc., were all construed as
significant of the divine will. To sacrifice with a view to this or that
undertaking, or to consult the oracle with the same view, are familiar
expressions embodied in the language. Nor could any man set about a
scheme with comfort until he had satisfied himself in some manner or
other that the gods were favorable to it.
The disposition here adverted to is one of these mental analogies
pervading the whole Hellenic nation, which Herodotus indicates. And the
common habit among all Greeks of respectfully listening to the oracle of
Delphi will be found on many occasions useful in maintaining unanimity
among men not accustomed to obey the same political superior. In the
numerous colonies especially, founded by mixed multitudes from distant
parts of Greece, the minds of the emigrants were greatly determined
toward cordial coöperation by their knowledge that the expedition had
been directed, the oecist indicated, and the spot either chosen or
approved by Apollo of Delphi. Such in most cases was the fact: that god,
according to the conception of the Greeks, "takes delight always in the
foundation of new cities, and himself in person lays the first stone."
These are the elements of union with which the historical Hellenes take
their start: community of blood, language, religious point of view,
legends, sacrifices, festivals, and also (with certain allowances) of
manners and character. The analogy of manners and character between the
rude inhabitants of the Arcadian Cynætha and the polite Athens, was,
indeed, accompanied with wide differences; yet if we compare the two
with foreign contemporaries, we shall find certain negative
characteristics of much importance common to both. In no city of
historical Greece did there prevail either human sacrifices or
deliberate mutilation, such as cutting off the nose, ears, hands, feet,
etc.; or castration; or selling of children into slavery; or polygamy;
or the feeling of unlimited obedience toward one man: all customs which
might be pointed out as existing among the contemporary Carthaginians,
Egyptians, Persians, Thracians, etc. The habit of running, wrestling,
boxing, etc., in gymnastic contests, with the body perfectly naked, was
common to all Greeks, having been first adopted as a Lacedæmonian
fashion in the fourteenth Olympiad: Thucydides and Herodotus remark that
it was not only not practised, but even regarded as unseemly, among
non-Hellenes. Of such customs, indeed, at once common to all the Greeks,
and peculiar to them as distinguished from others, we cannot specify a
great number, but we may see enough to convince ourselves that there did
really exist, in spite of local differences, a general Hellenic
sentiment and character, which counted among the cementing causes of a
union apparently so little assured.
During the two centuries succeeding B.C. 776, the festival of the
Olympic Zeus in the Pisatid gradually passed from a local to a national
character, and acquired an attractive force capable of bringing together
into temporary union the dispersed fragments of Hellas, from Marseilles
to Trebizond. In this important function it did not long stand alone.
During the sixth century B.C., three other festivals, at first local,
became successively nationalized--the Pythia near Delphi, the Isthmia
near Corinth, the Nemea near Cleone, between Sicyon and Argos.
In regard to the Pythian festival, we find a short notice of the
particular incidents and individuals by whom its reconstitution and
enlargement were brought about--a notice the more interesting inasmuch
as these very incidents are themselves a manifestation of something like
pan-Hellenic patriotism, standing almost alone in an age which presents
little else in operation except distinct city interests. At the time
when the Homeric Hymn to the Delphinian Apollo was composed (probably in
the seventh century B.C.), the Pythian festival had as yet acquired
little eminence. The rich and holy temple of Apollo was then purely
oracular, established for the purpose of communicating to pious
inquirers "the counsels of the Immortals." Multitudes of visitors came
to consult it, as well as to sacrifice victims and to deposit costly
offerings; but while the god delighted in the sound of the harp as an
accompaniment to the singing of pæans, he was by no means anxious to
encourage horse-races and chariot-races in the neighborhood. Nay, this
psalmist considers that the noise of horses would be "a nuisance", the
drinking of mules a desecration to the sacred fountains, and the
ostentation of fine-built chariots objectionable, as tending to divert
the attention of spectators away from the great temple and its wealth.
From such inconveniences the god was protected by placing his sanctuary
"in the rocky Pytho"--a rugged and uneven recess, of no great
dimensions, embosomed in the southern declivity of Parnassus, and about
two thousand feet above the level of the sea, while the topmost
Parnassian summits reach a height of near eight thousand feet. The
situation was extremely imposing, but unsuited by nature for the
congregation of any considerable number of spectators; altogether
impracticable for chariot-races; and only rendered practicable by later
art and outlay for the theatre as well as for the stadium. Such a site
furnished little means of subsistence, but the sacrifices and presents
of visitors enabled the ministers of the temple to live in abundance,
and gathered together by degrees a village around it.
Near the sanctuary of Pytho, and about the same altitude, was situated
the ancient Phocian town of Crissa, on a projecting spur of
Parnassus--overhung above by the line of rocky precipice called the
Phædriades, and itself overhanging below the deep ravine through which
flows the river Peistus. On the other side of this river rises the steep
mountain Cirphis, which projects southward into the Corinthian gulf--the
river reaching that gulf through the broad Crissoean plain, which
stretches westward nearly to the Locrian town of Amphissa; a plain for
the most part fertile and productive, though least so in its eastern
part immediately under the Cirphis, where the seaport Cirrha was placed.
The temple, the oracle, and the wealth of Pytho, belong to the very
earliest periods of Grecian antiquity. But the octennial solemnity in
honor of the god included at first no other competition except that of
bards, who sang each a pæan with the harp. The Amphictyonic assembly
held one of its half-yearly meetings near the temple of Pytho, the other
at Thermopylæ.
In those early times when the Homeric Hymn to Apollo was composed, the
town of Crissa appears to have been great and powerful, possessing all
the broad plain between Parnassus, Cirphis, and the gulf, to which
latter it gave its name--and possessing also, what was a property not
less valuable, the adjoining sanctuary of Pytho itself, which the Hymn
identifies with Crissa, not indicating Delphi as a separate place. The
Crissæans doubtless derived great profits from the number of visitors
who came to visit Delphi, both by land and by sea, and Cirrha was
originally only the name for their seaport. Gradually, however, the port
appears to have grown in importance at the expense of the town, just as
Apollonia and Ptolemais came to equal Cyrene and Barca, and as Plymouth
Dock has swelled into Devonport; while at the same time the sanctuary of
Pytho with its administrators expanded into the town of Delphi, and came
to claim an independent existence of its own. The original relations
between Crissa, Cirrha, and Delphi, were in this manner at length
subverted, the first declining and the two latter rising. The Crissæans
found themselves dispossessed of the management of the temple, which
passed to the Delphians; as well as of the profits arising from the
visitors, whose disbursements went to enrich the inhabitants of Cirrha.
Crissa was a primitive city of the Phocian name, and could boast of a
place as such in the Homeric Catalogue, so that her loss of importance
was not likely to be quietly endured. Moreover, in addition to the above
facts, already sufficient in themselves as seeds of quarrel, we are told
that the Cirrhæans abused their position as masters of the avenue to the
temple by sea, and levied exorbitant tolls on the visitors who landed
there--a number constantly increasing from the multiplication of the
transmarine colonies, and from the prosperity of those in Italy and
Sicily. Besides such offence against the general Grecian public, they
had also incurred the enmity of their Phocian neighbors by outrages upon
women, Phocian as well as Argian, who were returning from the temple.