Page:The Annual Register 1758.djvu/474

 46o' ANNUAL REGISTER, 1758,

body makes fo confiderable a fi- gure.

The council of Amphidyons, like other inftitutions of the fame kind, was at firft but inconfider- able ; nor did it arrive to its full ftrength and luftre but by gradual advances, and in a long feries of years. Its firft original we are to afcribe to Amphiftyon, the fon of Deucalion, an ancient king of ThefTaly, as the authority of the Arundelian Marbles warrants us to determine.

The intention of Amphiftyon, in indituting this afTembly, was, that the children of Deucalion, who at his deceafe divided the kingdom between them, fhould have a common tribunal, to which they might appeal in all private contefts; and a council, in which they might concert all meafures necefl'ary for their defence again ft their foreign enemies. And for thefe purpofes, befides thofe laws by which each particular city was governed, he enafled others of ge- neral force and obligation to all, which were called Amphictyonic laws. By means of thefc, faith Dionyfiuf, the people thus united, continued in ftridand mutual ami- ty ; regarded each other as real brethren and countrymen ; and were enabled to annoy and ftrike terror into their barbarous enemies. Thermopylae was the limit which divided the territories of Amphic- tyon and Hellen, the two brothers ; here, therefore, they built a tem- ple to Ceres, at the common charge, near the mouth of the river JLio- pus, in which the members of the Amphiclyonic council a.iTemMcd to offer their facrifices, and toconfult about their common intereft, twice in every year, in fpring and au-

tumn ; and hence the names Uv "KoL^et icc^an >^ fjt.il'j'jTu^nmt the ver- nal and autumnal convention.

The alTembly, thus formed, was at firft but fmall, being wholly compofed of thofe people whom DeucJion had commanded, and who from his fon Hellen, were called 'EAAHNEr. The Dori- ans and lonians, who were def- cended from the pofterity of this Hellen, as yet had no being ; nor were any of the Peloponnefians now accounted Hellene>, but were called Pelafgi ; nor were they dif- pofed to unite with the fons of Deucalion, by whom they had been deprived of Theffaly, and all that part of Greece which lay beyond theifthmus. As Greece improved, and the Hellenes increafed in num- ber, new regulations became ne- ccflary ; and accordingly we £nd, that in feme time after the origi- nal inftitution, Acrifius, king of Argos, when through fear of Perfeus, (who, as the oracle declar- ed, was to kill him) he retired into Theftalyjobrerved thedefedsof the Amphidyonic council, and under- took to new-model and regulate it ; extended its privileges; augmented thenumber of its members ; enafted new laws, by which the collective body was to be governed ; and af- figned to each ftate one fingle depu- ty, and one fingle voice, to be en- joyed by fome, in their own fole right; by others, in conjundlion with one or more inferior ftates ; and thus came to be confidered as the founder of this famous reprefen- tative of the Hellenic body.

From the time of Acrifius, the Amphidyons Hill continued to hold one of their annual councils at ThermopyicT, that of autumn. But it was now made a part of their fundlion