Vienna, in 1815, it was agreed by the eight powers which signed the treaty of Paris, that ministers in each class shall take precedence among themselves, according to the date of their official announcement at court, and that the order of signature of ministers to acts or treaties between several powers, that allow of the alternate, should be determined by lot. If the reader is curious to know wherein this precedence chiefly consists,-in what manner ministers are required to arrange themselves when they are standing up; in what, when they sit round a table: what order it behoves them to observe when they are placed in a row; what, when they walk in a line: how their rank is marked when their numbers are even; how, when their numbers are odd-we must refer him to the Manuel Diplomatique of the Baron Charles De Martens, chap. vi. For further information on the subject of Ambassador, he may consult Wicquefort, De l'Ambassadeur; Les Causes celèbres du droit des Gens, by C. De Martens; and the writers on the law of nations, particularly Vattel and G. F. Martens; and likewise the Cours de droit public, par Pinheiro-Ferreira.

The functions of permanent Ambassadors, as above explained, appear to have originated in modern times. The ambassadors (pérßeis) sent by the Greek states, and those sent by the Romans (legati) or received by them, were limited to extraordinary occasions. Among the Romans, ambassadors were so often sent by foreign nations to them, and sent by the Romans to foreign states, that the law with respect to them (Jus Legationis; Livy, vi. 17) became in course of time well settled. Ambassadors to Rome were under the protection of the state, whether they came from a hostile or a friendly nation. Their reception and the length of their stay at Rome would of course depend on the nature of the relations between their state and Rome, and the objects of their mission. They were received by the Roman senate and transacted their business with that body. The senate appointed the ambassadors who were sent from Rome to foreign states. The expenses of such ambassadors were paid by the Roman state, but the ambassadors were also entitled to make

certain demands from the provincials in their progress through a Roman province. This privilege gave rise in the later part of the republic to the practice of the Roman 'libera legatio,' which was the term applied to the permission obtained from the senate by a senator to leave Rome for distant parts on his own business. It was called 'libera,' free, apparently because the Senator had merely the title of Legatus without the duty; and it was called legatio' in respect of putting him on a like or similar footing with real legati as to the protection to his person and allowances to be claimed in the provinces. This privilege was often abused, both as to the length of time for which it was obtained and otherwise. A Lex Julia (of the Dictator Cæsar) limited the time to which these liberæ legationes' could be extended; but it is an incorrect inference from a passage of Cicero (Ad Attic. xv. 11) to conclude that the law fixed five years: the period which was fixed by the law is not stated. The libera legatio' is mentioned in the Pandect (50, tit. 7, s. 14), whence we may conclude that the practice continued to the time of Justinian, though probably in some modified form.

The word 'legatus' is a participle from the verb lego,' and signifies a person who is commissioned or empowered to do certain things.

AMENDMENT. [BILL IN PARLIA

MENT.]

A'MNESTY is a word derived from the Greek ȧuvnoría, amnestia, which, literally, signifies nothing more than nonremembrance. The word amnestia is not used by the earlier Greek writers; but the thing intended by it was expressed by the verbal form (un urnorkaкev). The word ȧuvnoría occurs in Plutarch and Herodian. Some critics suppose that Cicero (Philipp. i. 1) alludes to his having used the word; but he may have expressed the thing without using the word amnestia. It occurs in the life of Aurelian by Vopiscus (c. 39), according to some editions in the Latin form, but it is possible that Vopiscus wrote the word in Greek characters, and it is doubtful whether the word was ever incorporated into the Latin lan

in the council were the Thessalians, Baotians, Dorians, Ionians, Perrhæbians, Magnesians, Locrians, Etæans, Phthiots, Malians, Phocians. Each nation was represented by certain sovereign states, of which it was supposed to be the parent: thus Sparta, conjointly with other Dorian states, represented the Dorian nation. Amongst the states thus united in representing their common nation, there was a perfect equality. Sparta enjoyed no superiority over Dorium and Cytinium, two inconsiderable towns in Doris; and the deputies of Athens, one of the representatives of the Ionian nation, sat in the council on equal terms with those of Eretria and Euboea, and of Priene, an Ionian colony in Asia Minor. From a rather doubtful passage in Aschines (De Fals. Leg. 43), compared with a statement in Diodorus (xvi. 60), it seems that each nation, whatever might be the number of its constituent states, had two, and only two votes. The council had two regular sessions in each year, meeting in the spring at Delphi, and in the autumn near Pyla, otherwise called Thermopyla; but special meetings were sometimes called before the usual time. From its meeting at Pyle, a session of Amphictyons was called a Pylæa, and the deputies were called Pylagoræ, that is, councillors at Pylæ. There were also deputies distinguished by the name of Hieromnemons, whose office it was, as their name implies, to attend to matters pertaining to religion. Athens sent three Pylagoræ and one Hieromnemon. The former were appointed for each session; the latter probably for a longer period, perhaps for the year, or two sessions. The council entertained charges laid before it in relation to offences committed against the Delphic god, made decrees thereupon, and appointed persons to execute them. These decrees, as we learn from Diodorus (vi. 24), were registered at Delphi. The cath taken by the deputies bound the Amphictyons not to destroy any of the Amphictyonic cities, or to debar them from the use of their fountains in peace or war; to make war on any who should transgress in these particulars. and to destroy their cities; to punish with hand, foot, voice, and with all their might, any who

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should plunder the property of the god (the Delphic Apollo), or should be privy to or devise anything against that which was in his temple. This is the oldest form of the Amphictyonic oath which has been recorded, and is expressly called by Eschines the ancient oath of the Amphictyons. It has inadvertently been attributed to Solon by Mr. Mitford, who has apparently confounded it with another oath imposed on a particular occasion. An ordinary council consisted only of the deputed Pylagoræ and Hieromnemons; but on some occasions at Delphi, all who were present with the Amphictyouic deputies to sacrifice in the temple and consult the oracle of the god, were summoned to attend, and then it received the name of an ecclesia, or assembly. Beside the list of Amphictyonic nations given by Eschines, we have one from Pausanias, which differs a little from that of Eschines, and another from Harpocration, which differs slightly from both. The orator, whilst he speaks generally of twelve nations, names only eleven. Strabo agrees with him in the larger number. It is further remarkable, that whilst Eschines places the Thessalians at the head of his list, Demosthenes (De Pace, p. 62) expressly excludes them from a seat in the council.

schines has left us much in the dark as to the usual mode of proceeding in the Amphictyonic sessions; and we shall look elsewhere in vain for certain information. It should seem that all the Pylagoræ sat in the council and took part in its deliberations; but if the common opinion mentioned above, respecting the two votes allowed to each nation be correct, it is certain that they did not all vote. The regulations according to which the decisions of the twelve nations were made can only be conjectured. We know that the religious matters which fell under the jurisdiction of the Amphictyonic body were managed principally, at least, by the Hieromnemons, who appear, from a verse in Aristophanes (Nub. 613), to have been appointed by lot, but we are not as well informed respecting the limits which separated their duties from those of the Pylagoræ, nor respecting the relative rank which they held in

the council. (Eschines, Contr. Ctes. p. 68-| 72; Fals. Leg. p. 43.) The little that is told is to be found for the most part in the ancient lexicographers and scholiasts, or commentators, who knew perhaps nothing about the matter, and whose accounts are sufficiently perplexing to give room for great variety of opinions among modern writers. Some have seemed to themselves to discover that the office of the Hieromnemons was of comparatively late creation, that these new deputies were of higher rank than the Pylagoræ, and that one of them always presided in the council; others again have supposed-what, indeed, an ancient lexicographer has expressly asserted that they acted as secretaries or scribes. Two Amphictyonic decrees are found at length in the oration of Demosthenes on the crown, both of which begin thus: "When Cleinagoras was priest, at the vernal Pylæa, it was resolved by the Pylagora and the Synedri (joint councillors) of the Amphictyons, and the common body of the Amphictyons." Some have assumed that Cleinagoras the priest was the presiding Hieromnemon, and others that the Hieromnemons are comprehended under the general name of Pylagora. Eschines again has mentioned a decree in which the Hieromnemons were ordered to repair at an appointed time to a session at Pyle, carrying with them the copy of a certain decree lately made by the council. Of the council, as it existed before the time of Æschines, a few notices are to be found in the ancient historians, some of which are not unimportant. According to Herodotus (vii. 200) the council held its meetings near Thermopyla, in a plain which surrounded the village of Anthela, and in which was a temple dedicated to the Amphictyonic Ceres; to whom, as Strabo tells us (ix. 429), the Amphictyons sacrificed at every session. This temple, according to Callimachus (Ep. 41), was founded by Acrisius; and hence arose, as Müller supposes in his history of the Dorians (vol. i. p. 289, English translation), the tradition mentioned above.

We are told by Strabo (ix. 418) that after the destruction of Crissa by an Amphictyonic army, under the command of

Eurylochus, a Thessalian prince, the Amphictyons instituted the celebrated games, which from that time were called the Pythian, in addition to the simple musical contests already established by the De.phians. Pausanias also (x. 7) attributes to the Amphictyons both the institution and subsequent regulation of the games; and it is supposed by the most skilful critics, that one occasion of the exercise of this authority, recorded by Pausanias, can be identified with the victory of Eurylochus mentioned by Strabo. According to this supposition, the Crissæan and the celebrated Cirrhæan war are the same, and Eurylochus must have lived as late as B.C. 591. But the history of these matters is full of difficulty, partly occasioned by the frequent confusion of the names of Crissa and Cirrha.

From the scanty materials left us by the ancient records, the following sketch of the history of this famous council is offered to the reader, as resting on some degree of probability :—

The council was originally formed by a confederacy of Greek nations or tribes which inhabited a part of the country afterwards called Thessaly. In the lists which have come down to us of the constituent tribes, the names belong for the most part to those hordes of primitive Greeks which are first heard of, and some of which continued to dwell north of the Malian bay. The bond of union was the common worship of Ceres, near whose temple at Anthela its meetings were held. With the worship of the goddess was afterwards joined that of the Delphic Apollo; and thenceforth the council met alternately at Delphi and Pyle. Its original seat and old connections were kept in remembrance by the continued use of the term Pylæa, to designate its sessions wherever held: though eventually the Delphic god enjoyed more than an equal share of consideration in the confederacy. It may be remarked that the Pythian Apollo, whose worship in its progress southwards can be faintly traced from the confines of Macedonia, was the peculiar god of the Dorians, who were of the Hellenic race; whilst the worship of Ceres was probably of Pelasgic origin,

and appears at one time to have been placed in opposition to that of Apollo, and in great measure to have retired before it. There is no direct authority for asserting that the joint worship was not coeval with the establishment of the council; but it seems probable from facts, which it is not necessary to examine here, that an Amphictyonic confederacy existed among the older residents, the worshippers of Ceres, in the neighbourhood of the Malian bay, before the hostile intruders with their rival deity were joined with them in a friendly coalition. The council met for religious purposes, the main object being to protect the temples and maintain the worship of the two deities. With religion were joined, according to the customs of the times, political objects; and the jurisdiction of the Amphictyons extended to matters which concerned the safety and internal peace of the confederacy. Hence the Amphictyonic laws, the provisions of which may be partly understood from the terms of the Amphictyonic oath. Confederacies and councils, similar to those of the Amphictyons, were common among the ancient Greeks. Such were those which united in federal republics the Greek colonists of Asia Minor, of the Eolian, Ionian, and Dorian nations. Such also was the confederacy of seven states whose council met in the temple of Neptune in the island of Calauria, and which is even called by Strabo (viii. 374) an Amphictyonic council.

The greater celebrity of the northern Amphictyons is attributable partly to the superior fame and authority of the Delphic Apollo; still more perhaps to their connection with powerful states which grew into importance at a comparatively late period. The migrating hordes, sent forth from the tribes of which originally or in very early times the confederacy was composed, carried with them their Amphictyonic rights, and thus at every remove lengthened the arms of the council. The great Dorian migration especially planted Amphictyonic cities in the remotest parts of Southern Greece. But this diffusion, whilst it extended its fame, was eventually fatal to its political authority. The early members, nearly equal

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perhaps in rank and power, whilst they remained in the neighbourhood of Mounts Eta and Parnassus, might be willing to submit their differences to the judgment of the Amphictyonic body. But the case was altered when Athens and Sparta became the leading powers in Greece. Sparta, for instance, would not readily pay obedience to the decrees of a distant council, in which the deputies of some inconsiderable towns in Doris sat on equal terms with their own. Accordingly in a most important period of Grecian history, during a long series of bloody contests between Amphictyonic states, we are unable to discover a single mark of the council's interference. On the other hand, we have from Thucydides (i. 112) a strong negative proof of the insignificance into which its authority had fallen. The Phocians (B.C. 448) possessed themselves by force of the temple of Apollo at Delphi; were deprived of it by the Lacedæmonians, by whom it was restored to the Delphians; and were again replaced by the Athenians. this, which is expressly called by the historian a sacred war, not even an allusion is made to the existence of an Amphictyonic council. After the decay of its political power, there still remained its religious jurisdiction; but it is not easy to determine its limits or the objects to which it was directed. In a treaty of peace made (B. C. 421) between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians (Thucydi des, v. 17), it was provided that the temple of Apollo at Delphi and the Delphians should be independent. This provision, however, appears to have had reference especially to the claims of the Phocians to include Delphi in the number of their towns, and not to have interfered in any respect with the superintendence of the temple and oracle, which the Amphic tyons had long exercised in conjunction" with the Delphians. We have seen that the Amphictyons were charged in the earliest times with the duty of protecting the temple and the worship of the god. But the right of superintendence, of regulating the mode of proceeding in consulting the oracle, in making the sacrifices, and in the celebration of the games, was apparently of much later origin, and