Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/501

SENTENCE AGAINST AMPHISSA 4; thus set on were not contented with simply demolishing, bat plundered and carried away whatever they could lay hands on. Presently, however, the Amphissians, whose town was on ihe high ground about seven or eight miles west of Delphi, apprised of the destruction of their property and seeing their houses in flames, arrived in haste to the rescue, with their full-armed force. The Amphiktyons and the Delphian multitude were obliged in their turn to evacuate Kirrha, and hurry back to Del- phi at their best speed. They were in the greatest personal danger. According to Demosthenes, some were actually seized ; but they must have been set at liberty almost immediately. 1 None were put to death ; an escape which they probably owed to the respect borne by the Amphissians, even under such exas- perating circumstances, to the Amphiktyonic function. On the morning after this narrow escape, the president, a Thes- salian of Pharsalus, named Ivottyphus, convoked a full Amphik- tyonic Ekklesia ; that is, not merely the Amphiktyons proper, or the legates and co-legates deputed from the various cities, but also, along with them, the promiscuous multitude present for pur- Demo^then. De Corona, p. 277. According to the second decree of the Amphiktyons cited in this oration (p. 278), some of the Amphiktyons were wounded. But I concur with Droysen, Franke, and others, in disputing the genuineness of these decrees ; and the assertion, that some of the Amphik- tyons were wounded, is one among the grounds for disputing it : for if such had been the fact, JEschines could hardly have failed to mention, it ; since it would have suited exactly the drift and purpose of his speech. JEscbsnes is by far the best witness for the proceedings at this spring meetinp of the Amphiktyons. He was not only present, but the leading person concerned ; if he makes a wrong statement, it must be by design. But if the facts as stated by JEschines are at all near the truth, it is hardly possible that the two decrees cited in Demosthenes can have been the real decrees passed by the Amphiktyons. The substance of what was resolved, as given by JEschines, pp. 70, 71, is materially different from the first de- cree qnoted in the oration of Demosthenes, p. 278. There is no mention, in the Istter, of those vivid and prominent circumstances the summoning of all the Delphians, freemen and slaves above sixteen years of age, with spade* and mattocks the exclusion from the temple, and the cursing, of any cUy which did not appear to take part. Tbs compiler of those decrees appears to have had only Demosthenes befora him, and to have known nothing of jEschines. Of the violent pro- eeoibigs of the Amphiktyons, both provoked and described by JSschines. t)"E">stbenes says nothing