Delphic Amphictyony

In the Archaic period of Greek history, an amphictyony (Greek: ἀμφικτυονία), a "league of neighbors", or Amphictyonic League was an ancient religious association of Greek tribes formed in the dim past, before the rise of the Greek polis. The six Dorian cities of coastal southwest Asia Minor, or the twelve Ionian cities to the north, a dodecapolis forming an Ionian League emerging in the aftermath of a dimly-remembered "Meliac war" in the mid-7th century BC, were already of considerable antiquity when the first written records emerge.

A Delian amphictyony, of polities under the aegis of Apollo's shrine at Delos, was apparently well-established in the 7th century, as the Homeric Hymn to Delian Apollo of that approximate date lists them, those cities and islands that trembled and refused to offer themselves for the birthplace of Apollo when pregnant Leto went to each in turn; the Homeric hymn presents an aition, or founding myth, for the cult of Apollo on Delos. The joint Ionian festival celebrated there was the Delia. A Delian amphictyony was recreated in the 4th century, as an instrument of Athenian hegemony.

Thucydides made recollection of the Lelantine War, apparently fought in Euboea sometime between the late 8th century BC and the first half of the 7th century BC:

"The war between Chalcis and Eretria was the one in which most cities belonging to the rest of Greece were divided up into alliances with one side or the other."

Historians have puzzled over the broader meanings of "alliance" in such early times. "But comparatively large-scale associations lead more readily to contacts, to friendships and enmities at a distance than do little city-like units," George Forrest notes, remarking apropos that Phrygia and Assyria were at war with each other about 720–710 BC, raising tensions among interested Greeks.

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