they controlled the administration of Delphi, the Amphictyones remained firmly connected to their northern cult center near Thermopylae. In recounting the fate of EPHIALTES, the traitor who led the Persians around the Spartan position at Thermopylae in 480, Herodotus (7.213) refers to a meeting of the Amphictyonic states at Pylaea. He reports that the pylagoroi (the representatives of the member states) declared Ephialtes an outlaw and put a price on his head. It was while serving as a pylagoros in 340 that the Athenian orator Aeschines reported the men of AMPHISSA for cultivating the Sacred Plain below Delphi, a denunciation that led to the Fourth Sacred War. The other representatives at the Amphictyonic meetings were called hieromnēmones, a broad term often applied to officials with priestly duties. The epitaphs erected in honor of the Greeks killed at Thermopylae, including SIMONIDES’ famous epigram beginning “Go tell the Spartans,” were commissioned by the Amphictyones, according to Herodotus (7.228).
SEE ALSO: Architecture (Temples); Panhellenism; Temples and Sanctuaries; Thessaly
REFERENCE
1 McInerney, Jeremy. 1999. The Folds of Parnassos: Land and Ethnicity in Ancient Phokis. Austin: University of Texas Press.
FURTHER READING
1 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.
AMPHILOCHUS (Ἀμϕίλοχος, ὁ)
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
A legendary seer, like his father AMPHIARAUS. Amphilochus fought at TROY and was credited with founding several CITIES in southeastern Anatolia—he was especially associated with the oracular shrine at Mallus (Strabo 14.5.16/C675; Plut. Mor. 434d)—as well as Amphilochian Argos in northwestern Greece (Thuc. 2.68.3; Baron 2014). Herodotus mentions Amphilochus twice: as the founder of the city of POSIDEION between CILICIA and SYRIA (3.91.1) and as the progenitor, along with the seer CALCHAS, of the PAMPHYLIANS (7.91).
SEE ALSO: Colonization; Divination; Myth
REFERENCE
1 Baron, Christopher. 2014. “Adopting an Ancestor: Addressing Some Problems Raised by Thucydides’ History of Amphilochian Argos (2.68).” AncW 45.1: 3–17.
FURTHER READING
1 Gantz, EGM, 527–28.
2 Krauskopf, Ingrid. 1981. “Amphilochos.” In LIMC I.1, 713–17.
AMPHILYTUS (Ἀμϕίλυτος, ὁ)
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
An Acarnanian chrēsmologos (someone who speaks, collects, or interprets ORACLES: Bowden 2003, 261). Amphilytus delivers a PROPHECY to PEISISTRATUS just before the Battle of Pallene (Attica) in 546 BCE: “the net has been cast … and the tuna will rush headlong through the night.” Peisistratus accepts the prophecy, leads his army to victory, and finally establishes himself as TYRANT at ATHENS (1.62.4; see Lavelle 1991). A pseudo‐Platonic dialogue refers to Amphilytus as an “Acharnian,” i.e., from the Attic DEME of Acharnae ([Plato] Theages 124d]; but ACARNANIA was particularly associated with seers (see e.g., MEGISTIAS), and the PEISISTRATIDAE showed great interest in collecting oracles and chrēsmologoi themselves (Shapiro 1990).
SEE ALSO: Divination; Fish; Onomacritus; Pallene (Deme)
REFERENCES
1 Bowden, Hugh. 2003. “Oracles for Sale.” In Herodotus and His World: Essays from a Conference in Memory of George Forrest, edited by Peter Derow and Robert Parker, 256–74. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2 Lavelle, Brian M. 1991. “The Compleat Angler: Observations on the Rise of Peisistratos in Herodotos (1.59–64).” CQ 41.2: 317–24.
3 Shapiro, H. A. 1990. “Oracle‐Mongers in Peisistratid Athens.” Kernos 3: 335–45.
AMPHIMNESTUS (Ἀμϕίμνηστος, ὁ)
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
Amphimnestus, from EPIDAMNUS on the IONIAN GULF, appears as one of the thirteen men who came to SICYON as a suitor for Cleisthenes’ daughter AGARISTE (I), sometime in the sixth century BCE (6.127.2). Nothing else is known of him. (See ALCON for bibliography.)
SEE ALSO: Cleisthenes of Sicyon; Competition; Epistrophus; Hippocleides; Megacles (II)
AMPHION (Ἀμϕίων, ὁ)
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
A member of the BACCHIADAE at CORINTH, father of LABDA (5.92.β.1). Amphion’s decision to marry his daughter to someone outside the clan (supposedly due to her infirmity) led to the downfall of the Bacchiad OLIGARCHY at the hands of her child, CYPSELUS SON OF EËTION, who became TYRANT at Corinth in the mid‐seventh century BCE.
SEE ALSO: Disabilities; Marriage
FURTHER READING
1 Oost, Stewart I. 1972. “Cypselus the Bacchiad.” CPh 67: 10–30.
AMPHISSA ( Ἄμϕισσα, ἡ)
JEREMY MCINERNEY
University of Pennsylvania
A West Locrian town located fifteen kilometers northwest of DELPHI (BA 55 C3). When the Persians invaded Greece in 480 BCE, many Phocians fled to Amphissa for protection (8.32.2), as did those Delphians who did not flee to Mt. PARNASSUS (8.36.2). Amphissa’s location explains its importance. It sits at the southern end of a corridor linking the Corinthian Gulf to central Greece. It also dominates the northern end of the Sacred Plain, the territory dedicated to APOLLO and left uncultivated in antiquity. When the Amphissans planted crops here in the 340s, they were denounced by the AMPHICTYONES, precipitating the Fourth Sacred War.
SEE ALSO: Crisaean Plain; Locris (Ozolian); Phocis
FURTHER READING
1 Kase, Edward W., George J. Szemler, Paul W. Wallace, and Nancy C. Wilkie, eds. 1991. The Great Isthmus Corridor Route: Explorations of the Phokis/Doris Expedition. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt.
2 Londey, Peter. 1990. “The Outbreak of the 4th Sacred War.” Chiron 20: 239–60.
