Orations Author:Demosthenes Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Theae were continually augmented till iac period cf the second Persian invasion, when Xerxes, having received accurate intejigeuct of the accumulated treasures, ... more »marched to Delphi for the express purpose of pillage.1 After his defeat Apollo shared with the othei gods in the spoil of the invader.' The importance of Delphi was yet further increased by the institution of the Pythian games, and by its having been at a still earlier period chosen as one of the seats ot the Amphictyonic council Thi nature and functions of this council are so intimately connected witu the subject before us, that I must stop to explain them. It is related by ancient historians, that Amphictyon, the son of Deucalion, founded the institution which bears his name, and the importance of which was in course of time so greatly enlarged as to have been called a general council or diet of ah1 Greece. Modern writers consider Amphictyon to be a fictitious personage, invented by mythologists, and deriving his name from the very council which lie is supposed to have founded, and which really signifies (according to the etymology of the word) an association of neighbouring people for some common purpose, whether of mutual defence, intercourse, or sacrifice. The habits of the ancient Greeks inclined them to form associations of this kind, especially those of a religious character; and that many such existed, and were called Amphictyones, we are distinctly informed; for example, one in the island Calauria, one at Onchestus in Bosotia, and the more celebrated one of Delps. But that which held its meetings at Delphi and Thermopylse acquired so much greater a celebrity than all the rest, as to be specially called the Am- phictyonic assembly.5 Twelve different people or tribes united to form this association; Boeoti...« less