combinations with carbonic acid have the same properties as the pure alkali, in respect to volatility, and only a diminished degree of causticity.

The gas in an undiluted state is highly pungent, with a suffocating odour, is irrespirable, and irritates and inflames the animal tissues. (Christison.) Diluted by passing through the air, from which it absorbs moisture and carbonic acid, which serve further to lessen its acrimony, it is occasionally, but rarely, applied to the eyes, in some passive inflammations, and to keep up vigilance in cases of somnolence from narcotic poisons. This last mode of using it is scarcely to be recommended, as dangerous inflammation of the eyes may subsequently follow. Indeed all employment of even the less caustic forms of administration, when much insensibility exists, such as in faintings, epileptic fits, or from narcotic poisons, likewise in experiments on persons in the state termed mesmeric coma, requires great care. Fatal inflammation of the windpipe has ensued by merely holding carbonate of ammonia (smelling salts) or a handkerchief dipped in strong aqua ammonia under the nostrils. (Nysten.) When it is to be introduced into the stomach, this should be done by means of the stomach-pump, to avoid any of it passing into the windpipe. Besides its local action, exciting inflammation and its effects, ammonia is itself poisonous, its secondary effect on the nervous system, particularly the spinal column, being sufficient to cause tetanic convulsions. Though Eau de Cologne may be grateful to adults, the vapour is unsafe for children. (See 'Lancet' for April, 1844.)

Ammoniacal gas absorbed by water constitutes the aqua or liquor ammoniæ. This is formed of two different degrees of strength: the one of a density of 882 at 62° F. called fortior, much too strong for any medicinal purpose, and only employed for some chemical purposes; the other of the density of 960, which also generally requires to be diluted further with water when intended for internal use, or with oils for external use, as it is very frequently, to form rubefacient liniments. The solution of the carbonate is likewise frequently employed in combination with oils. These, if long applied, or frequently repeated, cause inflammation which terminates in suppuration and ulceration.

Ammonia, when suitably diluted so as to be taken into the stomach, causes a feeling of warmth, with increased energy of the nervous power. Hence it acts as a prompt and valuable counter-poison to prussic acid, the bites of serpents, and the poison of many diseases, such as cholera asiatica, and typhoid fevers, at the commencement of which great depression of the nervous system is observed. In lesser degrees of depression, such as the languor of hysterical females, or in atonic gout, ammonia or its carbonates are daily resorted to. It is likewise employed to counteract acidity in the stomach. It must not be overlooked however that the long continued use of ammonia produces the same ill effects as the other alkalies when taken in excess. [ALKALIES.]

The salts of ammonia require a brief notice. The properties of the different combinations of ammonia with carbonic acid are too similar to those of the pure alkali to be noted separately, except to state that carbonate of ammonia furnishes a good emetic in the earliest stage of fever with great depression, and is in smaller doses given freely throughout adynamic fevers, sometimes in the effervescing form, especially when action of the skin is desired. Citric acid is employed to cause it to effervesce.

Hydrochlorate of ammonia is little employed in this country internally, but it may be beneficially used in combination with cinchona bark in fevers. In large doses it is poisonous. It is however chiefly employed to form discutient and evaporating lotions in conjunction with vinegar and spirit. For these it is most valuable, at the moment of solution.

Acetate of ammonia has little of the causticity of the pure alkali or the carbonates, neither is it volatile. It is so deliquescent that it cannot be kept in the solid form, and is always administered in weak acetic acid. This forms a most grateful refrigerant at the commencement of slight inflammatory complaints, and if the patient be kept warm, generally induces perspiration. For this purpose it requires to be freely given. It is also a diuretic, but not much employed. Properly diluted with rose-water it forms a cooling eyewash, most grateful after some forms of inflammation, to relieve the turgescence which remains, or even to remove turgescence which has not been preceded by inflammation. Scarpa thought it useful against commencing amaurosis.

AMMONIAC (GUM), a concrete juice produced in Persia, Abyssinia, &c., but the plant from which it is obtained does not appear to have been ascertained. Willdenow refers it to the Heracleum gummiferum, in which he is followed by the British College of Physicians. Others refer it to the Ferula orientalis. It consists of grains of various sizes, usually called tears: they are either separate or agglutinated into inasses; their colour is whitish, but they become yellow by the action of the air; they are shining, opaque, irregular in shape, and more or less globular. When cold, ammoniac is rather hard and brittle; it softens by the heat of the hand, but does not entirely liquify at a stronger heat. The smell is peculiar and disagreeable, and the taste is nauseous, at first mucilaginous and bitter, and afterwards acrid. Its specific gravity is 1-207. When triturated with water, it is partly dissolved, forming an emulsion which becomes clearer on standing.

When distilled with water, it loses its volatile oil, and becomes inodorous; the distilled water has the odour of the gum, and small drops of limpid, colourless oil float on its surface. Alcohol takes up about half its weight, forming a brownish-yellow solution, which becomes turbid when mixed with water. It is combustible, burning with a white flame, little smoke, and a strong smell; the ashes left consist of small portions of the carbonates of potash and lime, and phosphate of lime.

Sulphuric acid readily dissolves ammoniac, and water precipitates the solution; nitric acid converts it into a bitter substance; the fixed alkalies form with it a turbid solution, which is extremely bitter. According to Bucholz, ammoniac consists of

It is used in medicine as a stimulant and expectorant. AMMO'NIACUM-Medical properties of. This gum-resin is correctly referred to the Dorema ammoniacum (Don, in‘Linnæan Trans.,' vol. xvi. p. 599), which was discovered by Lieut.-Col. Wright, growing near Yezd. Khast, a town of Irāk Ajemi, the ancient Persis, about 42 miles south of Ispahan. Its Persian names are Ooshk and Ooshook. It has more recently been found on the low hills near Herat, likewise abundantly in Syghan, near Bameean, on the north-west slope of the Hindu-Coosh range of mountains. (Christison.)

Ammoniacum was known to the ancients: but it is supposed that what they used came from Africa as well as Asia, and was procured from a species of Ferula, F. tingitana (Linn.)

The Persian plant yields the juice chiefly from the stalk, especially the points of divarication of the umbels, owing to the punctures of numerous coleopterous insects. The gum is so abundant, that upon the slightest puncture being made, it instantly oozes forth, even at the ends of the leaves." (Capt. Hart, Trans. of Medical Society of Calcutta,' vol. i. p. 369.) The juice quickly dries, and is either picked off or allowed to accumulate till it falls on the ground. This collection takes place about the middle of June. A tenth part is remitted as tribute to the government; the rest is sent to Bushire, on the Persian Gulf, and thence to Europe. The best comes by Bombay. The juice of the Syghan plant is obtained by making successive slices of the root, as in the case of assafoetida. The samples vary much in quality. The directions given to purify the inferior sorts, by softening them in boiling water, and squeezing them through a cloth, though capable of removing mechanical impurities, impair the power of the gum-resin, by driving off the volatile oil, which even in good specimens is not very abundant, 32 ounces yielding by distillation only one drachm.

The officinal form for administering ammoniacum is the mixture, in which it is partially dissolved and partially suspended in water. It is a most valuable expectorant, and may have its virtues increased by the addition of squills or ipecacuanha. Dilute nitric acid greatly heightens its powers. It is also an ingredient in the compound squill pills. Externally it is applied as a plaster, to disperse indolent swellings, either softened by vinegar, a form which has kept its place amid all the changes in medical agents for nearly 2000 years, or combined with mercury, which is often beneficial.

AMMONITES, a nation descended, according to Gen. xix. 38, from the incestuous çonnection of Lot with his younger daughter, about the year 1898 B.C. The name of their progenitor, Ben Ammi, means son of my kindred, and the name Ammon has nearly the same signification. The Ammonites, or the children of Ammon, are called by the Septuagint and Josephus, Ammanita. The country which they inhabited was situated between the rivers Arnon and Jabbok, north-north-east of the Moabites, and east of the tribes of Reuben and Gad. The Israelites, under Moses, smote the Amorites, and possessed their land from Arnon unto Jabbok, even unto the children of Ammon, about the year 1452 before Christ: but they did not enter the territory of the Ammonites, for the border of the children of Ammon was strong. (Num. xxi. 24.) The Israelites were directed not to distress the children of Ammon, because the Lord had given the land unto the children of Lot for a possession. The Ammonites, however, showed the Israelites no kindness while passing through the country, and they were therefore forbidden entering the congregation of the Lord.' Their active hostility is first mentioned in Judges iii. when they helped Eglon, king of Moab, to subjugate Israel, and their hostile feelings continued. They sustained, in consequence, a severe defeat from Jephthah. (Judges xi.) The history of the wars between the Israelites and the Ammonites are recorded in the Pentateuch and other books of the Old Testament, and in the book of Maccabees.

From the prophetic writings we derive some further information as to the history and character of the Ammonites. Their destruction is predicted by Isaiah xi. 14; Zephaniah ii. 9; Jeremiah xlix. 1-5; Ezekiel xxv. In the days of Justin Martyr, the Ammonites were still very numerous; and in the days of Origen, the Ammonites and Edomites went under the general name of Arabians.

Their metropolis was Rabbah. The surrounding country was called Arabia Philadelphiensis.

The Ammonites were uncircumcised (Jer. ix. 26), and worshipped Molech or Milcom, and their idolatry was, by the Ammonitish wives of Solomon, introduced among the Israelites. (1 Kings xi. 7, 33; 2 Kings xxiii. 13.)

Of their kings, we know only Nahash and Hanun, in the time of David; and Baalis, contemporary with Nebuchadnezzar. (Jer. xl.) AMMONIUM. (NH). The hypothetical compound radical of the salts of ammonia. When ammoniacal gas unites with acids to form salts, the latter are regarded as no longer containing NH,, but as compounds of the radical NH,. Thus, when ammoniacal gas unites with hydrochloric acid, the salt chloride of ammonium is formed, containing the radical in question united with chlorine.

NH3+ HCl = (NH) Cl.

In like manner, when ammoniacal gas unites with a hydrated oxyacid, it is supposed that the water of hydration of the acid coalesces with the body, NH,, so as to form oxide of ammonium, which then unites with the acid to form a salt of ammonia. Thus, ammoniacal gas and hydrated nitric acid form nitrate of ammonia, NH, + HO, NO, = (NH)O, NO,. In the salts of ammonia, therefore, the radical ammonia takes the place of the metal in ordinary metallic salts; and nitrate of ammonia, and chloride of ammonium, for instance, thus become analogous in their constitution to nitrate of potash and chloride of potassium.

This view, first suggested by Ampere, and subsequently applied by Berzelius, is frequently termed the ammonium theory. Ammonium has never been obtained in a separate state, and is probably incapable of existing free from any other body. Reasoning from the analogy of its compounds with those of the metals, it has by some been regarded as a true metal; but although its compound with mercury [AMALGAM] lends some support to this notion, yet the non-metallic character of other isolated radicals renders the metallic attributes of ammonium highly improbable.

Acetate of Ammonia (NH,O, CH,O,).-This salt is prepared by adding sesquicarbonate of ammonia to dilute acetic acid. Owing to the superior affinity of the acetic acid for ammonia, the carbonic acid is expelled from it with effervescence, and a colourless solution remains, which contains neutral acetate of ammonia, but which, when concentrated and placed under the exhausted receiver of an air-pump over sulphuric acid, loses ammonia and yields transparent prismatic crystals, which are very deliquescent, and consist of an acid salt. The neutral salt may be obtained in the crystalline form by saturating glacial acetic acid with ammoniacal gas. It is white, and very soluble in water and in alcohol.

Acetate of ammonia is directed to be prepared in the 'London Pharmacopoeia,' and kept in solution under the name of Liquor Ammonia Acetatis. It is used externally as a refrigerant, and internally as a diaphoretic, and is commonly known by the name of Spirit of Minde

rerus.

Oxalate of Ammonia (C ̧0, 2NH ̧0, +2aq.).—This salt is prepared by adding sesquicarbonate of ammonia to a solution of oxalic acid, until it is saturated. The solution by evaporation yields small prismatic crystals; these are devoid of smell, have a bitter, saline taste, and dissolve readily in water. By dry distillation they yield oxamide. Oxalate of ammonia is used as a test of the presence of lime, and to precipitate it from solution in chemical analyses.

AMMONIUM, CHLORIDE OF. (NH,Cl.) This salt has been long known, and extensively used, under the name of Sal Ammoniac. The substance from which it was first procured, was the soot of camel's dung. It is now largely manufactured in Europe, by combining hydrochloric acid, either directly or indirectly, with the ammonia obtained from the decomposition of animal matter, but principally from the liquor obtained during the preparation of coal-gas. This impure ammoniacal liquor is at once saturated with hydrochloric acid, and evaporated to crystallisation. The crystals are then sublimed.

Chloride of ammonium, as obtained by sublimation, is an amorphous, translucent, colourless salt; but when separated from water by crystallisation, its form is cubic. It has a sharp, saline taste, but no smell, and dissolves readily in water; exposure to a dry air produces no change in it; by heat, it volatilises without decomposition. Lime and the fixed alkalies decompose it, evolving ammoniacal gas; and sulphuric acid expels hydrochloric acid gas. It is composed of equal volumes of hydrochloric acid gas and ammoniacal gas, as may be shown by the perfect condensation of these proportions in a jar over mercury; or by weight, of

One atom of hydrochloric acid One atom of ammonia

Atomic weight

36.5

This salt is much employed in the tinning of iron, copper, and brass, and in agriculture. It is generally used for preparing ammoniacal

gas, and the sesquicarbonate of ammonia, in the modes already described. AMMONIUM AMALGAM. [AMALGAM.]

AMMONIUM, IODIDE OF (NH,I). Prepared by saturating a solution of hydriodic acid with ammonia, and then evaporating until the salt crystallises. Iodide of ammonium crystallises in cubes which are deliquescent, and is slowly decomposed on exposure to air and light. It ought, therefore, to be preserved in well stopped and opaque bottles. It is easily soluble in water, and also in alcohol and ether. The latter property has led to its extensive use in photography for iodising collodion. Iodine is very soluble in an aqueous solution of iodide of ammonium.

A'MNESTY is a word derived from the Greek duvnoría, amnéstia, which, literally, signifies nothing more than non-remembrance. The word amnestia is not used by the earlier Greek writers; but the thing intended by it was expressed by the verbal form (un μvnoikakeiv). The word àμvnoría occurs in Plutarch and Herodian. Some critics suppose that Cicero ( Philipp.' i. 1) alludes to his having used the word; but he may have expressed the thing without using the word amnestia. It occurs in the life of Aurelian by Vopiscus (c. 39), according to some editions in the Latin form, but it is possible that Vopiscus wrote the word in Greek characters, and it is doubtful whether the word was ever incorporated into the Latin Language. Nepos, in his life of Thrasybulus (c. 3), expresses the notion of an act of Amnesty by the words "lex oblivionis," and it is clear from a passage in Valerius Maximus (iv. 1), that the word was not adopted into the Latin language when Valerius wrote, whatever that time may be.

The notion of an amnesty among the Greeks was a declaration of the person or persons who had newly acquired or recovered the sovereign power in a state, by which they pardoned all persons who composed, supported, or obeyed the government which had been just overthrown. A declaration of this kind may be either absolute and universal, or it may except certain persons specifically named, or certain classes of persons generally described. Thus in Athens, when Thrasybulus had destroyed the oligarchy of the Thirty Tyrants, and had restored the democratical form of government, an exceptive amnesty of past political offences was declared, from the operation of which the Thirty themselves, and some few persons who had acted in the most invidious offices under them, were excluded. (Xenophon, 'Hellen.' ii, 4, 38; Isocrates, Against Callimachus,' c. 1.). So when Bonaparte returned from Elba in 1815, he published an amnesty, from which he excluded thirteen persons, whom he named in a decree published at Lyon. The act of indemnity, passed upon the restoration of Charles II., by which the persons actually concerned in the execution of his father were excluded from the benefit of the royal and parliamentary pardon, is an instance of an amnesty from which a class of persons were excepted by a general description and not by name. Of a like nature was the law passed by the French Chambers in January, 1816, upon the return of Louis XVIII. to the throne of France after the victory at Waterloo, which offered a complete amnesty to "all persons who had directly or indirectly taken part in the rebellion and usurpation of Napoleon Bonaparte," with the exception of certain persons, whose names had been previously mentioned in a royal ordinance as the most active partisans of the usurper. It was objected to this French law of amnesty, that it did not point out with sufficient perspicuity the individuals who were to be excepted from its operation. Instead of confining itself to naming the offenders, it excepted whole classes of offences, by which means a degree of uncertainty and confusion was occasioned, which much retarded the peaceable settlement of the nation. "In consequence of this course," says M. de Châteaubriand in a pamphlet published soon after the event, "punishment and fear have been permitted to hover over France; wounds have been kept open, passions exasperated, and recollections of enmity awakened." The act of indemnity, passed at the accession of Charles II., was not liable to this objection, by the distinctness of which, as Dr. Johnson said, "the flutter of innumerable bosoms was stilled," and a state of public feeling promoted, extremely favourable to the authority and quiet government of the restored prince.

AMO'MUM-Medical Properties of this and allied Genera. This comprehensive heading is adopted to include many aromatic stimulants, such as cardamoms, grains of paradise, &c., which are obtained from several plants related to amomum. German pharmacopolists even term Pimento berries, or Jamaica allspice, semen amomi; but this is never so called in Great Britain. Much obscurity hung over the history of the true cardamoms, which recent investigations have removed; and as Dr. Pereira has treated the whole subject at great length in his 'Materia Medica,' his statements are chiefly followed here.

It

The true, officinal, or Malabar cardamoms are procured from the elettaria cardamomum (Rheede, 'Hortus Malabaricus,' vol. ix.), White; the botanical characters of which were described by Dr. Maton (Trans. Linn. Soc.' x. p. 254). The Edinburgh College term it renealmia (Rosc.); the London, alpinia cardamomum (Roxb.). occurs in the mountainous parts of Malabar, and is also cultivated. The cardamoms of the Wynaad, which are the most esteemed and bring the highest price, are cultivated. The fruit is the part collected, but the seed alone is used. The seed-vessel or husk is altogether devoid of aroma or pungency; but the seeds should never be taken out

managed principally, at least, by the Hieromnemons, who appear, from a verse in Aristophanes, Nub.' 613, to have been appointed by lot, but we are not as well informed respecting the limits which separated their duties from those of the Pylagoræ, nor respecting the relative rank which they held in the council. (See Æsch. Contr. Ctes.' p. 6872; Fals. Leg.' p. 43.) The little that is told is to be found for the most part in the ancient lexicographers and scholiasts, or commentators, who knew perhaps nothing about the matter, and whose accounts are sufficiently perplexing to give room for great variety of opinions among modern writers. Some have seemed to themselves to discover that the office of the Hieromnemons was of comparatively late creation, that these new deputies were of higher rank than the Pylagoræ, and that one of them always presided in the council; others again have supposed, what, indeed, an ancient lexicographer has expressly asserted, that they acted as secretaries or scribes. Two Amphictyonic decrees are found at length in the oration of Demosthenes on the Crown, both of which begin thus: "When Cleinagoras was priest, at the vernal Pylaa, it was resolved by the Pylagora and the Synedri (joint councillors) of the Amphictyons, and the common body of the Amphictyons." Some have assumed that Cleinagoras the priest was the presiding Hieromnemon, and others that the Hieromnemons are comprehended under the general name of Pylagoræ. Eschines again has mentioned a decree in which the Hieromnemons were ordered to repair at an appointed time to a session at Pylæ, carrying with them the copy of a certain decree lately made by the council. Of the council, as it existed before the time of Eschines, a few notices are to be found in the ancient historians, some of which are not unimportant. According to Herodotus, vii. 200, the council held its meetings near Thermopylæ, in a plain which surrounded the village of Anthela, and in which was a temple dedicated to the Amphictyonic Ceres; to whom, as Strabo tells us, ix. 429, the Amphictyons sacrificed at every session. This temple, according to Callimachus, Ep.' 41, was founded by Acrisius; and hence arose, as Müller supposes in his history of the Dorians (vol. i. p. 289, English translation), the tradition mentioned We are told by Strabo, ix. 418, that after the destruction of Crissa by an Amphictyonic army, under the command of Eurylochus, a Thessalian prince, the Amphictyons instituted the celebrated games, which from that time were called the Pythian, in addition to the simple musical contests already established by the Delphians. Pausanias also, x. 7., attributes to the Amphictyons, both the institution and subsequent regulation of the games; and it is supposed by the most skilful critics, that one occasion of the exercise of this authority, recorded by Pausanias, can be identified with the victory of Eurylochus, mentioned by Strabo. According to this supposition, the Crissæan, and the celebrated Cirrhaan war, are the same, and Eurylochus must have lived as late as B.C. 591. But the history of these matters is full of difficulty, partly occasioned by the frequent confusion of the names of Crissa and Cirrha.

above.

From the scanty materials left us by the ancient records, the following sketch of the history of this famous council is offered to the reader, as resting on some degree of probability:

The council was originally formed by a confederacy of Greek nations or tribes, which inhabited a part of the country afterwards called Thessaly. In the lists which have come down to us of the constituent tribes, the names belong for the most part to those hordes of primitive Greeks which are first heard of, and some of which continued to dwell north of the Malian bay. The bond of union was the common worship of Ceres, near whose temple at Anthela its meetings were held. With the worship of the goddess was afterwards joined that of the Delphic Apollo; and thenceforth the council met alternately at Delphi and Pyle. Its original seat and old connections were kept in remembrance by the continued use of the term Pylæa, to designate its sessions wherever held; though eventually the Delphic god enjoyed more than an equal share of consideration in the confederacy. It may be remarked that the Pythian Apollo, whose worship in its progress southwards can be faintly traced from the confines of Macedonia, was the peculiar god of the Dorians who were of the Hellenic race; whilst the worship of Ceres was probably of Pelasgic origin, and appears at one time to have been placed in opposition to that of Apollo, and in great measure to have retired before it. There is no direct authority for asserting that the joint worship was not coeval with the establishment of the council; but it seems probable from facts, which it is not necessary to examine here, that an Amphictyonic confederacy existed among the older residents, the worshippers of Ceres, in the neighbourhood of the Malian bay, before the hostile intruders with their rival deity were joined with them in a friendly coalition. The council met for religious purposes, the main object being to protect the temples and maintain the worship of the two deities. With religion were joined, according to the customs of the times, political objects; and the jurisdiction of the Amphictyons extended to matters which concerned the safety and internal peace of the confederacy. Hence the Amphictyonic laws, the provisions of which may be partly understood from the terms of the Amphictyonic oath. Confederacies and councils, similar to those of the Amphictyons, were common among the ancient Greeks. Such were those which united in federal republics the Greek colonists of Asia Minor, of the Eolian, Ionian, and Dorian nations. Such also was the confederacy of seven states whose council met in the temple of

ARTS AND SCI. DIV, VOL. I.

Neptune, in the island of Calauria, and which is even called by Strabo, viii. 374, an Amphictyonic council.

The greater celebrity of the northern Amphictyons is attributable partly to the superior fame and authority of the Delphic Apollo; still more, perhaps, to their connection with powerful states which grew into importance at a comparatively late period. The migrating hordes, sent forth from the tribes of which originally or in very early times the confederacy was composed, carried with them their Amphictyonic rights, and thus at every remove lengthened the arms of the council. The great Dorian migration especially planted Amphictyonic cities in the remotest parts of Southern Greece. But this diffusion, whilst it extended its fame, was eventually fatal to its political authority. The early members, nearly equal perhaps in rank and power, whilst they remained in the neighbourhood of Mounts Eta and Parnassus, might be willing to submit their differences to the judgment of the Amphictyonic body. But the case was altered when Athens and Sparta became the leading powers in Greece. Sparta, for instance, would not readily pay obedience to the decrees of a distant council, in which the deputies of some inconsiderable towns in Doris sat on equal terms with their own. Accordingly in a most important period of Grecian history, during a long series of bloody contests between Amphictyonic states, we are unable to discover a single mark of the council's interference. On the other hand, we have from Thucydides i. 112, a strong negative proof of the insignificance into which its authority had fallen. The Phocians (B.C. 448) possessed themselves by force of the temple of Apollo at Delphi; were deprived of it by the Lacedæmonians, by whom it was restored to the Delphians; and were again replaced by the Athenians. In this, which is expressly called by the historian a sacred war, not even an allusion is made to the existence of an Amphictyonic council. After the decay of its political power there still remained its religious jurisdiction; but it is not easy to determine its limits, or the objects to which it was directed. In a treaty of peace made (B.C. 421) between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians (Thucyd. v. 17), it was provided that the temple of Apollo at Delphi, and the Delphians, should be independent. This provision, however, appears to have had reference especially to the claims of the Phocians to include Delphi in the number of their towns, and not to have interfered in any respect with the superintendence of the temple and oracle, which the Amphictyons had long exercised in conjunction with the Delphians. We have seen that the Amphictyons were charged in the earliest times with the duty of protecting the temple and the worship of the god. But the right of superintendence, of regulating the mode of proceeding in consulting the oracle, in making the sacrifices, and in the celebration of the games, was apparently of much later origin, and may, with some probability, be dated from the victory gained by Eurylochus and the Amphictyonic army. The exercise of this right had the effect of preserving to the council permanently a considerable degree of importance. In early times the Delphic god had enjoyed immense authority. He sent out colonies, founded cities, and originated weighty measures of various kinds. Before the times of which we have lately been speaking, his influence had been somewhat diminished; but the oracle was still most anxiously consulted both on public and private matters. The custody of the temple was also an object of jealous interest on account of the vast treasures contained within its walls. The Greek writers, who notice the religious jurisdiction of the council, point our attention almost exclusively to Delphi; but it may be inferred from a remarkable fact mentioned by Tacitus, ' Ann.' iv. 14, that it was much more extensive. The Samians, when petitioning in the time of the Emperor Tiberius for the confirmation of a certain privilege to their temple of Juno, pleaded an ancient decree of the Amphictyons in their favour. The words of the historian seem to imply that the decree was made at an early period in the existence of Greek colonies in Asia Minor, and he says that the decision of the Amphictyons on all matters had at that time pre-eminent authority. The sacred wars, as they were called, which were originated by the Amphictyons in the exercise of their judicial authority, can here be noticed only so far as they help to illustrate the immediate subject of inquiry. The Cirrhæan war, in the time of Solon, has already been incidentally mentioned. The port of Cirrha, a town on the Crissæan bay, afforded the readiest access from the coast to Delphi. The Cirrhæans, availing themselves of their situation, grievously oppressed by heavy exactions the numerous pilgrims to the Delphic temple. The Amphictyons, by direction of the oracle, proclaimed a sacred war to avenge the cause of the god; that is, to correct an abuse which was generally offensive, and particularly injurious to the interests of the Delphians. Cirrha was destroyed, the inhabitants reduced to slavery, their lands consecrated to Apollo, and a curse was pronounced on all who should hereafter cultivate them. We are told that Solon acted a prominent part on this occasion, and that great deference was shown to his counsels. Mr. Mitford, indeed, has discovered without help from history, which is altogether silent on the subject, that he was the author of sundry important innovations, and that he in fact remodelled the constitution of the Amphictyonic body. He has even been able to catch a view of the secret intentions of the legislator, and of the political principles which guided him. But in further assigning to Solon the command of the Amphictyonic army, he is opposed to the direct testimony of the ancient historians.

From the conclusion of the Cirrhæan war to the time of Philip of

Macedon, an interval exceeding two centuries, we hear little more of the Amphictyons, than that they rebuilt the temple at Delphi, which had been destroyed by fire B.c. 548; that they set a price on the head of Ephialtes, who betrayed the cause of the Greeks at Thermopyla, and conferred public honours on the patriots who died there; and that they erected a monument to the famous diver Scyllias, as a reward for the information which, as the story goes, he conveyed under water from the Thessalian coast to the commanders of the Grecian fleet at Artemisium. If Plutarch may be trusted, the power of the Amphictyons had not at this time fallen into contempt. When a proposition was made by the Lacedæmonians to expel from the council all the states which had not taken part in the war against the Persians, it was resisted successfully by Themistocles, or, the ground that the exclusion of three considerable states, Argos, Thebes, and the Thessalians, would give to the more powerful of the remaining members a preponderating influence in the council dangerous to the rest of Greece.

After having, for a long period, nearly lost sight of the Amphictyons in history, we find them venturing, in the fallen fortunes of Sparta, to impose a heavy fine on that state as a punishment for an old offence, the seizure of the Theban Cadmeia, the payment of which, however, they made no attempt to enforce. In this case, as well as in the celebrated Phocian war, the Amphictyonic council can be considered only as an instrument in the hands of the Thebans, who after their successful resistance to Sparta, appear to have acquired a preponderating influence in it, and who found it convenient to use its name and authority, whilst prosecuting their own schemes of vengeance or ambition. Though the charge brought against the Phocians was that of impiety in cultivating a part of the accursed Cirrhæan plain, there is no reason to think that any religious feeling was excited, at least in the earlier part of the contest; and Amphictyonic states were eagerly engaged as combatants on both sides. For an account of this war, the reader is referred to a general history of Greece. The council was so far affected by the result, that it was compelled to receive a new member, and in fact a master, in the person of Philip of Macedon, who was thus rewarded for his important services at the expense of the Phocians, who were expelled from the confederacy. They were, however, at a subsequent period restored, in consequence of their noble exertions in the cause of Greece and the Delphic god against the Gauls. It may be remarked, that the testimony of the Phocian general Philomelus, whatever may be its value, is rather in favour of the supposition that the council was not always connected with Delphi. He justifies his opposition to its decrees, on the ground that the right which the Amphictyons claimed was comparatively a modern usurpation. In the case of the Amphissians, whose crime was similar to that of the Phocians, the name of the Amphictyons was again readily employed; but Eschines, who seems to have been the principal instigator of the war, had doubtless a higher object in view than that of punishing the Amphissians for impiety.

The Amphictyonic council long survived the independence of Greece, and was, probably, in the constant exercise of its religious functions. So late as the battle of Actium, it retained enough of its former dignity at least, to induce Augustus to claim a place in it for his new city of Nicopolis. Strabo says that in his time it had ceased to exist. If his words are to be understood literally, it must have been revived; for we know from Pausanias (x. 8.), that it was in existence in the second century after Christ. It reckoned at that time twelve constituent states, who furnished in all thirty deputies; but a preponderance was given to the new town of Nicopolis, which sent six deputies to each meeting. Delphi sent two to each meeting, and Athens, one deputy; the other states sent their deputies according to a certain cycle, and not to every meeting. For the time of its final dissolution, we have no authority on which we can rely.

It is not easy to estimate with much certainty the effects produced on the Greek nation generally, by the institution of this council. It is, however, something more than conjecture, that the country which was the seat of the original members of the Amphictyonic confederacy, was also the cradle of the Greek nation, such as it is known to us in the historical ages. This country was subject to incursions from barbarous tribes, especially on its western frontier, probably of a very different character from the occupants of whom we have been speaking. In the pressure of these incursions, the Amphictyonic confederacy may have been a powerful instrument of preservation, and must have tended to maintain at least the separation of its members from their foreign neighbours, and so to preserve the peculiar character of that gifted people, from which knowledge and civilisation have flowed over the whole western world. It may also have aided the cause of humanity; for it is reasonable to suppose that in earlier times, differences between its own members were occasionally composed by interference of the council; and thus it may have been a partial check on the butchery of war, and may at least have diminished the miseries resulting from the cruel lust of military renown. In one respect, its influence was greatly and permanently beneficial. In common with the great public festivals, it helped to give a national unity to numerous independent states, of which the Greek nation was composed. But it had a merit which did not belong to those festivals in an equal degree. It cannot be doubted that the Amphictyonic laws, which regulated the originally small confederacy, were the foundation of that international law which was recognised throughout Greece; and which, imperfect as it was, had

some effect in regulating beneficially national intercourse among the Greeks in peace and war, and, so far as it went, was opposed to that brute force and lawless aggression, which no Greek felt himself restrained by any law from exercising towards those who were not of the Greek name. To the investigator of that dark but interesting period in the existence of the Greek nation, which precedes its authentic records, the hints which have been left us on the earlier days of this council, faint and scanty as they are, have still their value. They contribute something to those fragments of evidence with which the learning and still more the ingenuity of the present generation are converting mythical legends into a body of ancient history. AMPHIPROSTYLE. This is an architectural term, compounded of three Greek words. It is used to designate structures having the form of an ancient Greek or Roman parallelogramic temple, with a prostyle or portico on each of its ends or fronts, but with no columns on its sides or flanks. [TEMPLE.]

AMPHI'SCII, literally double shadowed, a Greek term applied by ancient astronomers to the inhabitants of the torrid zone, with whom the sun passes the meridian at noon, sometimes on the north, sometimes on the south, of the zenith, and whose shadows at noon are therefore turned to the south during one part of the year, and to the north during the remainder.

AMPHITHEATRE, the name by which a species of structure much used by the Romans, and combining the forms and some of the uses

of the ancient theatre and circus, is generally distinguished; indeed most of the Roman classical writers apply to it the name of circus also. A distinction, however, is now always made; the term amphitheatre being applied to the species of structure here referred to, and circus being restricted to the Roman stadium or hippodrome. [CIRCUS.]

The name amphitheatre seems intended to convey the idea of a double theatre; but what is termed a theatre is, with reference to its original uses, more strictly an odeum, and what we call an amphitheatre was truly a theatre. The one was for hearing music and recitations, and the other for seeing sights, -as the words import. [THEATRE.]

The form of the amphitheatre is, on the plan, that of an ellipsis, with a series of arcaded concentric walls, separating corridors which have constructions with staircases and radiating passages between them. It encloses an open space called the arena, either on, or a very little above or below the level of the surface of the ground on which the structure is raised. From the innermost concentric wall,-which bounds the arena, and which will be from ten to fifteen feet above its level,-an inclined plane runs upwards and outwards over the intermediate wall, staircases, and corridors, to a gallery or galleries over the outermost corridors. The inner and upper part of the inclined plane is covered with a graduated series of benches following the general form of the plan; these are intercepted at intervals by radial passages leading by a more easy gradation to and from the staircases which pass through the substructions of the benches to the corridors. These corridors, in the principal stories, continue uninterruptedly all round the edifice, and afford easy access to, and egress from, every part. In cases where the radiating passages through the bank of benches were few, concentric platforms or precinctions went round to make the communications complete. The external elevation of an amphitheatre is almost dictated by its internal arrangement and construction, and it generally falls into two or more stories of open arches, which are necessary to give light and air to the corridors and staircases.

The Amphitheatre seems to have been contrived for the more convenient exhibition of such shows as were confined throughout to the same place, such as combats, which could not be seen advantageously along the length of the circus; and moreover the circus had not the lofty stereobate, podium, or cincture, to protect the spectators from the savage and powerful brute animals which were frequently used in the public shows of the Romans. Indeed, it is reported that this defect was a cause of the abandonment of the circus for such exhibitions as required the use of wild beasts. The great length also of the circus would be a sufficient reason for adopting the more compressed and lofty form given to the amphitheatre, whose arrangement admits of a far greater number of persons being brought within a