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AMPHIKTYONIC ASSEMBLY. 203 preferred the charge, nor those who passed the vote, expected thai the Lacedaemonians would really submit to pay the fine. The ut- most which could be done, by way of punishment for such contu- macy, would be to exclude them from the Pythian games, which were celebrated under the presidency of the Amphiktyons ; and we may perhaps presume that they really were thus excluded. The incident however deserves peculiar notice, in more than one point of view. First, as indicating the lessened dignity of Sparta. Since the victory of Leuktra and the death of Jason, Thebes had become preponderant, especially in Northern Greece, where the majority of the nations or races voting in the Amphiktyonic assembly were situated. It is plainly through the ascendency of Thebes, that this condemnatory vote was passed. Next, as indicating the incipient tendency, which we shall hereafter observe still farther developed, to extend the functions of the Amphiktyonic assembly beyond its special sphere of religious solemnities, and to make it the instru- ment of political coercion or revenge in the hands of the predomi- nant state. In the previous course of this history, an entire cen- tury has passed without giving occasion to mention the Amphik- tyonic assembly as taking part in political affairs. Neither Thu- cydides nor Xenophon, though their united histories cover seventy years, chiefly of Hellenic conflict, ever speak of that assembly. The latter, indeed, does not even notice this fine imposed upon the Lacedaemonians, although it falls within the period of his his- tory. We know the fact only from Diodorus and Justin ; and unfortunately merely as a naked fact, without any collateral or preliminary details. During the sixty or seventy years preceding the battle of Leuktra, Sparta had always had her regular political confederacy and synod of allies convened by herself: her political ascendency was exercised over them, eo nomine, by a method more direct and easy than that of perverting the religious author- ity of the Amphiktyonic assembly, even if such a proceeding were open to her. 1 But when Thebes, after the battle of Leuktra, be- came the more powerful state individually, she had no such estab- lished confederacy and synod of allies, to sanction her propositions, and to share or abet her antipathies. The Amphiktyonic assembly, 1 See Tittmann, Ueber den Bund der Amphiktyomcn, pp. 192-197 (Ber lin, 1812).