Th AMPHICTYONES. 1597 
ther fitted for that purpofe. The Hellenic Prefe&ts of the tem- 
ple, fuperior to the Barbarians in political fkill and fagacity, 
would ftrain every nerve to promote a {cheme calculated to ad- 
vance both their honour and their intereft. 
In all ages, and in all countries, to partake of the fame com- 
mon facrifices has been deemed an infallible fign of amity and 
concord, Firft of all, then, the confederates affembled at Del- 
phi, at certain ftated feafons, to offer facrifices, and perform o- 
ther religious rites in name of all the affociated tribes *. This 
was the moft indiffoluble bond of their foederal union. Upon 
thefe public and folemn occafions, magnificent donations weré 
offered to the Pythian god, and his iminifters no doubt fhared 
largely in thefe munificent effufions of devout liberality. As 
in confequence of thefe public donations, and the bountitul 
largeffes of private individuals, who crowded from all quarters 
to confult the oracle, the treafury of the temple became ex- 
ceedingly rich, the confederates imagined, that it concerned 
their honour, and perhaps their intereft, to appoint officers to 
fuperintend that treafure. Srraso tells us exprefsly, that this 
was one of the ends of the inftitutions of the Amphiétyones +. 
Kau rz lege, x. 7. A. “ And they were to have the fuperintendency. 
“ of the temple in a more public capacity, which, as there was a 
“* prodigious mafs of treafure and donations depofited in 16, 
** needed to be carefully watched and hallowed with purity.”’ 
Thus it appears, the the original Amphidtyones were a kind of 
wardens of the temple of Delphi, elected by the fuffrages of 
the confederated tribes. - ! 
In 
* See Herop. lib.i. Ephefus, and the temple of Drawa there, was the cen- 
tre of union among the people of Leffler Afia, and we find that TaRQurinius 
Priscus projected a like centre of union among all the petty ftates of Latium. 
Czsar informs us, that the Gauls had a like centre of refort in the territory 
of the Carnutes, where the Druids affembled once a-year to offer facrifices in 
name of all the communities of Gaul. 
+ Lib. ix. p. 420, 
