Thus every year was marked by at least one great national festival, and every second year by two, reminding the throngs which attended them of their common origin, and the distinction between themselves and barbarians. Beside keeping alive that athletic training which increased the strength of Grecian youth, these yearly assemblies served also the purposes of the modern European fairs, of the lecture hall, and, to a certain extent, of the printing-press; for booths were erected all around the sacred grove, in which the industries of all the Hellenic states and colonies found a ready market; while, in the intervals of athletic display, poets chanted to the eager throng their hymns and ballads; historians related the deeds of foreign and native heroes; and philosophers unfolded to all who were wise enough to listen, their theories of mind and matter, and the relation of gods to men. =42.= Another bond of union among the Greeks was found in the Amphic´tyones, or voluntary associations of neighboring or kindred tribes, usually for the protection of some common temple or sanctuary. Such a one had its center at Delos, the religious metropolis of the Cyclades; and the three tribes of Dorians, Ionians, and Æolians in western Asia Minor had each its federal union on the same principle. But the most celebrated and lasting was the Amphictyonic league of twelve tribes, which had its semi-annual meetings, in the spring at Delphi, and in the autumn at Anthela, near Thermopylæ. =43.= After the Dorian Conquest, Argos was for several centuries the leading power in Greece. In the earliest part of its history, the government was a monarchy, like those of the Heroic Age, the kings claiming descent from Hercules. But the spirit of freedom having been awakened in the people, they gradually took away power from their kings, and established a republic, though retaining the name of monarchy. About 780 B. C., one Phi´don came to the throne, who, having more talent than his predecessors, won back all the powers which they had lost, and made himself absolute with the now first-used name of “tyrant.” He extended the dominion of Argos over the whole Peloponnese, and sent forth colonies which rendered the Argive name famous in Crete, Rhodes, Cos, Cnidus, and Halicarnassus. His intercourse with Asia led to the first use of coined money in Greece, and of a system of weights and measures which is supposed to be the same with the Babylonian. After the death of Phidon, Argive power rapidly declined. The subject and allied cities threw off the oppressive rule which he had exercised, and a new state was now gaining power in the Peloponnese which was destined to eclipse all the glories of Argos. SPARTA.