wife Eriphyle, Amphiaraus took part in the doomed Argive expedition to THEBES, although he foresaw his own death there (Apollod. Bibl. 3.6.2). At Thebes, Amphiaraus was swallowed by the earth, thereby escaping death on the battlefield (Pind. Nem. 9.21–27). Herodotus alludes to this popular mythographic tradition when he reports that Croesus knew of Amphiaraus’ valor and suffering (1.52). The site of the seer’s engulfment became an oracle, the Amphiareion, whose exact location is contested. The Amphiareion is one of the seven oracular sanctuaries that CROESUS tests in order to ascertain their knowledge of the TRUTH (1.46). Of these seven, only the Amphiareion and DELPHI were determined to be truthful in the Lydian king’s estimation (1.49). After cataloguing the many gifts Croesus sent to Delphi, Herodotus adds that Croesus bestowed on Amphiaraus a shield and spear, both of solid GOLD, which he himself saw in the temple of Ismenian APOLLO at Thebes (1.52; see EPIGRAPHY). In recounting MYS’ consultation of the Amphiareion, Herodotus explains why the native Thebans were barred from consulting it: when Amphiaraus once gave them the choice of having him as their seer or military ally, the Thebans chose the latter (8.134).
SEE ALSO: Dedications; Divination; Myth; Temples and Sanctuaries
FURTHER READING
1 Foster, Margaret. 2018. The Seer and the City: Religion, Politics, and Colonial Ideology in Ancient Greece. Berkeley: University of California Press.
2 Gantz, EGM, 506–19.
3 Krauskopf, Ingrid. 1981. “Amphiaraos.” In LIMC I.1, 691–713.
4 Sineux, Pierre. 2007. Amphiaraos: guerrier, devin et guérisseur. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.
5 Terranova, Chiara. 2013. Tra cielo e terra: Amphiaraos nel Mediterraneo antico. Rome: Aracne Editrice.
AMPHICAEA (Ἀμϕίκαια, ἡ)
ANGELA ZAUTCKE
University of Notre Dame
Herodotus includes Amphicaea in his list of twelve Phocian poleis in the CEPHISUS River valley (BA 55 D3; Müller I, 452–53) which were destroyed by XERXES’ invasion force, guided by the THESSALIANS, in 480 BCE (8.33). The Roman‐era author Pausanias says that Herodotus’ spelling reflects the older version; by the fourth century BCE it was called Amphicleia. Pausanius relates a local story that the city’s name was once Ophiteia as well (10.33.9–10). Little else is known of the city in the classical period.
SEE ALSO: Phocis; Persian Wars
FURTHER READING
1 IACP no. 172 (409–10).
2 McInerney, Jeremy. 1999. The Folds of Parnassos: Land and Ethnicity in Ancient Phokis, 275–77. Austin: University of Texas Press.
AMPHICRATES (Ἀμϕικράτης, ὁ)
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
A king or magistrate of SAMOS in the ARCHAIC AGE (3.59.4). Herodotus states that when Amphicrates was basileus the Samians had campaigned against AEGINA, doing (and suffering) much damage. The only TIME frame Herodotus supplies for this is “earlier” than the events he has just narrated, which occurred c. 520 BCE. Proposed links with the “LELANTINE WAR” are tenuous; recent scholars have found a date c. 600 more likely (Carty 2015, 25–28; Figueira 1983, 21–22). It is possible that Herodotus’ term basileus refers to an eponymous magistrate of Samos, rather than a “king” in the usual sense.
SEE ALSO: Chronology
REFERENCES
1 Carty, Aideen. 2015. Polycrates, Tyrant of Samos: New Light on Archaic Greece. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.
2 Figueira, Thomas. 1983. “Aeginetan Independence.” CJ 79.1: 8–29. Reprinted in Excursions in Epichoric History: Aiginetan Essays, 9–33. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1993.
AMPHICTYON (Ἀμϕικτύων, ὁ)
JEREMY MCINERNEY
University of Pennsylvania
Amphictyon was the eponymous hero who gave his name to the local federation of central Greek states, the AMPHICTYONES (“Dwellers‐Around”), who first controlled the land around THERMOPYLAE and later DELPHI. In Greek MYTH (Apollod. Bibl. 1.7.2) he was the son of Pyrrha and DEUCALION, a GENEALOGY suggesting worship by local communities who shared stories of the flood, centered on Mt. PARNASSUS. He also occurs in the early king lists of ATHENS, having married the daughter of Cranaus. There was a sanctuary of Amphictyon at ANTHELA, near Thermopylae, as well as a sanctuary of DEMETER Amphictyonis (Hdt. 7.200.2).
SEE ALSO: Cranaoi; Heroes and Hero Cult; Temples and Sanctuaries
FURTHER READING
1 Finkelberg, Margalit. 1995. “Sophocles Tr. 634–639 and Herodotus.” Mnemosyne ser. 4, 48.2: 146–52.
2 Sánchez, Pierre. 2001. L’Amphictionie des Pyles et de Delphes: recherches sur son rôle historique, des origines au IIe siècle de notre ère. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.
AMPHICTYONES (Ἀμϕικτύονες, οἱ)
JEREMY MCINERNEY
University of Pennsylvania
The term Amphictyony may refer to any regional federation of communities, such as the Calaurian League, a loose political and religious grouping of towns located around the Saronic Gulf. Their representatives met at the sanctuary of POSEIDON on Poros. Herodotus applies the term to a specific confederation, the Amphictyones (“Dwellers‐Around”), that is, twelve communities of the THERMOPYLAE region. Member states included the Magnetes and PERRHAEBIANS, conquered by the Thessalians in the sixth century BCE, and the Amphictyony’s origins probably go back to at least the seventh century (McInerney 1999, 163). By the classical period the Amphictyony would include member states from the Vale of TEMPE in the north to the PELOPONNESE in the south, but originally was much more compact. Participating states met at ANTHELA, which, according to Herodotus (7.200), was a village situated on a broad strip of land between the PHOENIX RIVER and Thermopylae. Here there was a temple of DEMETER Amphictyonis, a meeting place of the Amphictyonic states (Pylaea, 7.213), and a sanctuary of the hero AMPHICTYON. The combination of tutelary deity, meeting place used by representatives of the member states, and a cult of an eponymous hero is typical of federal unions in the ARCHAIC AGE.
By no later than the mid fifth century the Amphictyony had extended its control to the south side of PARNASSUS and administered the affairs of the Panhellenic sanctuary at DELPHI. One of the two annual meetings was held there, and the Amphictyony’s control of Delphi explains the growth of the organization. Herodotus (2.180) attributes the rebuilding of the temple of APOLLO, destroyed by FIRE in 548, to the Amphictyonic states, and he reports (5.62) that the ALCMAEONIDAE, in EXILE from ATHENS, took out a contract with the Amphictyony to rebuild the temple. Famously the contract
