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This was the case in Greece, when Philip undertook to execute the decree of the Amphictyons; in the Low Countries, where the province of Holland always gave the law; and in our time in the Germanic confederation, in which Austria and Prussia assume a great degree of influence over the whole country, in the name of the Diet.
These men afterwards escaping from their prison, went and obtained sentence against the Scyrians in a court of Amphictyons, and when the Scyrian people declined to make public restitution, and called upon the individuals who had got the plunder to give it up, these persons, in alarm, wrote to Cimon to succor them with his fleet, and declared themselves ready to deliver the town into his hands.
This truly headstrong hero having successfully effected his daring progress through the east country, girded up his loins as he approached Boston, and prepared for the grand onslaught with the Amphictyons, which was to be the crowning achievement of the campaign.
For this Solon grew famed and powerful; but his advice in favor of defending the oracle at Delphi, to give aid, and not to suffer the Cirrhaeans to profane it, but to maintain the honor of the god, got him most repute among the Greeks: for upon his persuasion the Amphictyons undertook the war.
Separate monuments to the Greeks generally, and to the three hundred who had refused to retreat, were built also, by the Amphictyons, at Thermopylae. Long extant, posterity admired the inscriptions which they bore; that of the Spartans became proverbial for its sublime conciseness. "Go, stranger," it said, "and tell the Spartans that we obeyed the law and lie here!"
The temple of Delphi having been destroyed by fire, they agreed with the Amphictyons to rebuild it, and performed the holy task with a magnificent splendour far exceeding the conditions of the contract. But in that religious land, wealth, thus lavished, was no unprofitable investment.
"Were they under a government like that of the United States?" inquired Laurence. "No," replied Grandfather; "the different colonies did not compose one nation together; it was merely a confederacy among the governments: It somewhat resembled the league of the Amphictyons, which you remember in Grecian history. But to return to our chair.
Nor must I omit to mention the joy which many strapping wenches betrayed at beholding the jovial Van Corlear, who had whilom delighted them so much with his trumpet, when he bore the great Peter's challenge to the Amphictyons.
Many a fearful conjecture was hazarded as to what had befallen him and his loyal squire. Had they not been devoured alive by the cannibals of Marblehead and Cape Cod? Had they not been put to the question by the great council of Amphictyons? Had they not been smothered in onions by the terrible men of Pyquag?
He then occupied Delphi, where he assembled the Amphictyons to pronounce sentence upon those who bad been concerned in the sacrilege committed there. The council decreed that all the cities of Phocia, except Abae, should be destroyed, and their inhabitants scattered into villages containing not more than fifty houses each. The result of the Sacred War rendered Macedon the leading state in Greece.
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