ns 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 Alcmaeonids 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 Perrhaebians, the Magnetes, and the Achaeans
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 AEschines 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 inst