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 Pylea, it was resolved by the Pylagore 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 Thermopyla, 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 above.

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 Crissaan, and the celebrated Cirrhæan 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.

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 connexions 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 con

cerned 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 Æolian, Ionian, and Dorian nations. Such also was the confederacy of seven states whose council met in the temple of 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 connexion 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

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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 Cirrhoean 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 Thermopylæ, 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, on 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 Am

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 civilization 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.

AMPHIDESMA, among zoologists, is the name of a genus of marine bivalve shells, which live in the sand on the sea-coast of tropical climates. The shells are oval or rounded, sometimes rather twisted and slightly gaping behind. They have two hinge teeth in each valve, and often distinct compressed lateral ones. The elastic cartilage is placed in a small triangular cavity just behind the hinge teeth. The animals of these shells are unknown; but they are supposed to have long syphons, like the Tellens, as the shells have a broad, deep inflation on the back edge of the submarginal scar, formed by the attachment of the muscles which retract these syphons, as in the Tellens. from which genus it simply differs in the position of its cartilage.

Lamarck gave the name of Amphidesma to this genus. because he observed that it had a ligament and a cartilage, which he regarded as peculiar to this genus, he having. like the rest of the zoologists before the appearance of the

Conchological Observations in the Zoological Journal, considered what is usually called the ligament of bivalves as only one substance. It is, however, two substances, of very different structure and use; the outer, or ligament, being inelastic, and only employed to keep the two valves together, is formed of fibres extending from the edge of one valve to the other; but the cartilage is elastic and formed of perpendicular fibres, like the prismatic crystalline-structured shell, its use being to separate the valves from one another when the muscles which keep them closed are relaxed. When the valves are closed, this part is compressed by their edge. For this purpose it is sometimes, as in the shell under consideration, placed in a small triangular cavity close to the hinge, when the shell is said to have an internal cartilage, the ligament being still in its usual place. In other shells it is placed, along with the ligament, on the margin of the valves, and is pressed, when the valves are closed, against the ligament itself, which forms its outer wall. The resistance which the ligament offers is the means of opening the shell. The cartilage has opaline reflections, and the cartilages of some large shells, as the mother-of-pearl shells, are sold by the jewellers under the name of Peacock-stone, or black opals. They are not so much used now as formerly, but they are still much sought after on the Continent, especially in Portugal.

AMPHILA, BAY OF, a bay extending for about sixteen miles along the west coast of the Red Sea, in 14° 30' N. lat. and 41° E. long. from Greenwich. Mr. Salt has given a chart of it on a large scale, from a survey, in his Voyage to Abyssinia, quarto, London, 1814. There are thirteen islands in the bay, the largest of which, called also Amphila, lying near its south-eastern extremity, is not quite a mile in length. Of these islands one only is a rock of calcareous stone; the others are all composed of corallines, madrepores, and other marine alluvia, strongly cemented together, and covered with a thin layer of soil. None of them are now inhabited, though on one, called Kutto, there are the ruins of some houses. On the main land at the bottom of the bay is the village of Duroro, and farther to the south-east, the smaller village of Madir. Between these and the sea is a sort of thick jungle of rack trees. This district was formerly part of the old kingdom of Dankali, and still retains that name. Mr. Salt thinks it probable that Amphila is not a native word, but a corruption of the Greek AvTpixov Xuny, mentioned by Strabo. Casaub. p. 771. (Salt's Abyssinia, chap. iv.)

AMPHIPOLIS, an ancient Greek city, on the left or eastern bank of the river Strymon, just below its egress from the lake Kerkine, now called Takino, and about three miles above its influx to the sea. This town was at first called Ennea Hodoi (the nine ways), and belonged to the Edonians, a Thracian people. The first attempt at colonization here was by Aristagoras of Miletus, who failed in the attempt, (в.C. 497.)

The Athenians next made an unsuccessful attempt, (B.C. 465,) and sustained a severe loss, but they took Ennea Hodoi in the year 437 B.C., and established there a colony. They enlarged and fortified the town, to which Hagnon, the leader of the colony, gave the name of Amphipolis, because the river Strymon flowed round a large part of it, forming nearly a circle; a wall was built across, and thus the town was defended on every side. This is Thucydides account, (lib. iv. cap. 102) which some geographers have interpreted as if the town had stood between two branches of the river, which do not exist. In several maps, also, the Angitas, which flows from the eastward into the lake Kerkine, is mistaken for the Strymon which enters it from the north. The latter is called Struma by the Bulgarian inhabitants who are very numerous in this district. During the Peloponnesian war, (B.C. 424,) the Lacedæmonians, under their general Brasidas, took Amphipolis. Cleon, being sent by the Athenians to retake it, was beaten by Brasidas in a combat under the walls of the town, where both generals lost their lives. The importance of Amphipolis was derived from its situation on the banks of a navigable river, a short distance from the sea, and from its neighbourhood to the gold mines of Mount Pangæus, and to the fine forests of Kerkine, from which, even now, many cargoes of timber are annually shipped at the mouth of the Strymon. Amphipolis was taken by Philip, king of Macedonia. Amphipolis has long been in ruins, and a village of about 100 houses, called Jeni-Keui, inhabited by Turks and Greeks, occupies part of its former site. It lies about

twenty miles south-east of the large town of Serres, the residence of a bey, and fifty-four miles north-east of Salonichi. M. Cousinéry, formerly French consul at Salonichi, gives an account of the ruins of Amphipolis, which he repeatedly visited, and a view of the site of the antient town, and the course of the river, &c., in his Voyage dans la Macédoine. He found some traces of the town wall, some remains of sculpture, and a curious Greek inscription, being a decree of banishment against two citizens of Amphipolis, one of whom, Stratocles, is perhaps the envoy of that name mentioned by Demosthenes in the first Olynthiac, who became obnoxious to Philip for his attachment to Athens. A number of medals are still found among the ruins of Amphipolis. M. Cousinéry visited also the ruins of Eion, formerly a town near Amphipolis, on the left bank and at the mouth of the Strymon. The great Roman road, called the Via Egnatia, ran through Amphipolis, or perhaps rather through Eion.

AMPHIPROSTYLE. This is an architectural term, compounded of three Greek words. It is used to designate structures having the form of an antient 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. The plan of the temple of Jupiter Panhellenius, at Ægina, given with the article EGINA, will exactly exemplify this arrangement, if the flanking rows of columns forming the lateral ambulatories are supposed to be removed. This would leave (independently of the internal hypethral disposition in the particular instance) an exact representation of what is intended, in its ordinary acceptation, by the term Amphiprostyle, or, to retain the Greek form, Amphiprostylos; and the structure, having thus four columns in front, would be an amphi-tetra-prostylon. (See also PROSTYLE.)

AMPHISBÆNA, (from audiolana, which signifies, an animal that can walk in both directions,) in zoology a genus of serpents, distinguished by their bodies having nearly the same uniform thickness from the head to the extremity of the tail, by their small mouths and extremely diminutive eyes, their remarkably short tails, and the numerous rings of small square scales which completely surround this organ and the body. A range of small pores runs in front of the vent, which is situated nearly at the end of the tail; the jaws alone are provided with a single row of small conical teeth, the palate being without any; and even those of the jaws are few and distant from one another. They are, moreover, destitute of fangs, and are consequently harmless and inoffensive, living for the most part upon ants and other small insects, and inhabiting ant-hills and burrow: which they themselves construct under ground. The nature of their food does not require these animals to possess the power of dilating the mouth and gullet to the extraordinary extent that is observed in the boas, pythons, and other serpents in general, which live for the most part upon animals proportionally much larger than themselves, and in order to admit the huge mouthful have the upper and under jaws both equally moveable upon the cranium. In the amphisbana, on the contrary, the upper jaw is fixed to the skull and intermaxillary bones, as in birds and mammals, so that the head remains constantly in the same plane with the body,-a form which permits the animal to move equally well in either direction, namely, either backwards or forwards, and which has acquired for it the name by which it is distinguished.

The head of the amphisbæna is so small, and the tail so thick and short, that it is difficult at first sight to distinguish one from the other, and this circumstance, united to the animal's habit of proceeding either backwards or forwards as the occasion may require, has given rise to the popular belief very generally spread throughout Brazil and other parts of South America, the native countries of this genus, that it possesses two heads, one at each extremity, and that it is impossible to destroy the animal by simple cutting, as the two heads mutually seek one another in case of such a serious accident, and soon re-unite as if nothing had happened. Ignorance is the parent of superstition and absurdity, and one wonder naturally produces twenty: it is not therefore surprising that, among an ignorant and credulous people, the singularity of the amphisbæna's form and habits should have given rise to this and a multitude of other gross fictions.

Another snake,' says Stedman, in his History of Surinam, which I also observed here, is about three feet long, and annulated with different colours; it is called amphisbæna,