Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/470

 438 AMPHICTYONS peatedly; the common land salamander also reproduces its tail, which it so easily separates in case of need. Impregnation is effected with- out sexual congress, except in the land salaman- der ; in the order anoura, the male embraces the female with great tenacity, and impregnates the eggs, several hundred in number, as they are ejected under his pressure; in the tailed aquatic species, impregnation takes place dur- ing the instantaneous apposition of the cloacal openings of the two sexes. The testes and ovaries are double, and symmetrically arranged ; they are much enlarged at the breeding season. When the young are ready for aquatic life, they burst the thin membrane of the egg, and come out in the fish-like form. In the terrestrial salamander, whose habits do not permit this mode of development, the young undergo their metamorphosis in the oviduct, in which they pass their tadpole state, and appear without gills when they are ready for terrestrial exist- ence. Like the viper, the salamander is ovo- viviparous. In the pipa, or Surinam toad, the eggs, instead of being dropped into the water, are placed by the male on the back of the female ; here they are attached by a thick mu- cus, and the skin gradually thickens in the in- tervals so as to form a cell around each egg ; in these cells the young undergo their metamor- phosis, and come from them perfect animals. After the young are hatched out, the cells of .the female disappear. Like many of the sau- rian and chelonian reptiles, some of the am- phibia are used as food. The delicacy of the frog's thigh is well known to the epicure. The Mexicans consider the siredon or axolotl very good eating ; and it is quite probable that, like the reptile iguana, many of the hideous am- phibia are wholesome articles of food. AMPHICTYONS, members of an amphictyony, a term used by the ancient Greeks to designate an association of neighboring tribes or cities for the observance of the law of nations toward each other, and the protection and worship of some deity, whose temple was sup- posed to be the common property of all. The word is sometimes derived from the mythical hero Amphictyon, son of Deucalion and Pyr- rha, but is properly a compound from apQi and KT/W or KT/W, signifying u dwellers around " or "neighbors." The origin of these associations is enveloped in much obscurity, and beyond the fact that several of them existed in Greece at a very remote period, forming as it were the germ of one of the strongest bonds of union by which the Greek tribes were held together, we know nothing of the circumstances of their formation. The most celebrated of these con- federations was that known as the amphicty- onic council, which from small beginnings rose to great importance, on account of the wealth and magnificence of the temple of Apollo at Delphi, of which it was the special guardian. It was composed of 12 tribes, variously de- scribed by the authorities, but generally sup- posed to comprise the lonians. Dolopians, Thes- AMPHILOOHUS salians, (Etseans, Magnetes, Malians, Phthian Achseans, Dorians, Phocians (including the Del- phians), Locrians, Boeotians, and Perrhsebians, all of whom originally dwelt in and around Thessaly and were of equal importance, although subsequently we find them distributed over all parts of Greece. Some became utterly insig- nificant or extinct, and the fact of the Dorians standing on an equality with the Dolopians or Malians shows that the council must have ex- isted before the Dorian conquest of the Pelo- ponnesus. The council met twice a year, in the spring at the temple of Apollo at Delphi, and in the autumn at that of Ceres at Anthela, near Thermopylae, and was represented by two classes of deputies from each tribe, the hieromnemons and the pylagorae, whence it has been supposed that two amphictyonies, organized for the worship of two distinct deities, were subsequently merged in one. The 12 tribes had equal rights at the meetings of the council, and each was entitled to two votes, to be given by its deputies. The objects of the confederation are best described in the following oath which each of its members was obliged to take : " We will not destroy any amphictyonio town, nor cut it off from running water in war or peace ; if any shall do so, we will march against him and destroy his city. If any one shall plunder the property of the god, or shall be cognizant thereof, or shall take treacherous counsel against the things in his temple at Del- phi, we will punish him with foot and hand and voice, and by every means in our power." Notwithstanding the humane and wise objects of the council, it engaged in two sanguinary wars against some of its own members, called the first and second sacred wars, and finally lent itself to the ambitious purposes of Philip of Macedon, who in the name of the league excited a third war in 338 B. C., in which the liberties of Greece were extinguished at the battle of Chseronea. The first of these wars, which began in 595 B. C. and lasted till 585, was declared against the Phocian city of Crissa, on account of injuries inflicted upon persons visiting the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, and resulted in the total destruction of the city. The second sacred war, from 355 to 346 B. 0., originating in a charge against the Phocians of taking into cultivation a tract of land belonging to the Delphic temple, was carried on with such vindictiveness that nearly every Phocian town was destroyed. Philip of Macedon, having entered the struggle at the solicitations of the Thessalians, decided the war in their favor, and thus gained his fatal ascendancy in the affairs of Greece. The Phocians were ejected from the league at the close of the war, but were subsequently readmitted. The duration of the amphictyonic council is not precisely known, but it survived the independence of Greece. A >l I'lllUM III s. a legendary hero of Greece, the son of Amphiaraus and Eriphyle, and brother of Alcma3on. He took part in the war of the epigoni against Thebes, aided his