abstained from food for 24 hours, and three days from wine, after which they sacrificed a ram to the prophet, and spread the skin upon the ground, upon which they slept in expectation of receiving in a dream the answer of the oracle. Plutarch, _De Defectu Oraculorum_, mentions that the oracle of Amphiaraus was once consulted in the time of Xerxes, by one of the servants of Mardonius, for his master, who was then with an army in Greece; and that the servant, when asleep, saw in a dream the priest of the temple, who upbraided him and drove him away, and even threw stones at his head when he refused to comply. This oracle was verified in the death of Mardonius, who was actually killed by the blow of a stone which he received on the head. _Cicero_, _de Divinatione_, bk. 1, ch. 40. ――_Philostratus_, _Lives_.――_Apollonius_, bk. 2, ch. 11.――_Homer_, _Odyssey_, bk. 15, li. 243, &c.――_Hyginus_, fables 70, 73, 128, & 150.――_Diodorus_, bk. 4.――_Ovid_, bk. 9, fable 10.――_Pausanias_, bk. 1, ch. 34; bk. 2, ch. 37; bk. 9, chs. 8 & 19.――_Aeschylus_, _Seven Against Thebes_.――_Apollodorus_, bk. 1, chs. 8 & 9; bk. 3, ch. 6, &c.――_Strabo_, bk. 8. =Amphiarāĭdes=, a patronymic of Alcmæon as being son of Amphiaraus. _Ovid_, _Fasti_, bk. 2, li. 43. =Amphicrătes=, an historian who wrote the lives of illustrious men. _Diogenes Laërtius._ =Amphictyon=, son of Deucalion and Pyrrha, reigned at Athens after Cranaus, and first attempted to give the interpretation of dreams, and to draw omens. Some say that the deluge happened in his age. _Justin_, bk. 2, ch. 6.――――The son of Helenus, who first established the celebrated council of the _Amphictyons_, composed of the wisest and most virtuous men of some cities of Greece. This august assembly consisted of 12 persons, originally sent by the following states: the Ionians, Dorians, Perhæbians, Bœotians, Magnesians, Phthians, Locrians, Malians, Phocians, Thessalians, Dolopes, and the people of Œta. Other cities in process of time sent also some of their citizens to the council of the Amphictyons, and in the age of Antoninus Pius, they were increased to the number of 30. They generally met twice every year at Delphi, and sometimes sat at Thermopylæ. They took into consideration all matters of difference which might exist between the different states of Greece. When the Phocians plundered the temple of Delphi the Amphictyons declared war against them, and this war was supported by all the states of Greece, and lasted 10 years. The Phocians, with their allies the Lacedæmonians, were deprived of the privilege of sitting in the council of the Amphictyons, and the Macedonians were admitted in their place, for their services in support of the war. About 60 years after, when Brennus, with the Gauls, invaded Greece, the Phocians behaved with such courage, that they were reinstated in all their former privileges. Before they proceeded to business, the