The hero Amphiktyon, whose temple stood at Thermopylæ, passed in mythical genealogy for the brother of Hellên. And it may be affirmed, with truth, that the habit of forming Amphiktyonic unions, and of frequenting each other’s religious festivals was the great means of creating and fostering the primitive feeling of brotherhood among the children of Hellên, in those early times when rudeness, insecurity, and pugnacity did so much to isolate them. A certain number of salutary habits and sentiments, such as that which the Amphiktyonic oath embodies, in regard to abstinence from injury, as well as to mutual protection,[393] gradually found their way into men’s minds: the obligations thus brought into play, acquired a substantive efficacy of their own, and the religious feeling which always remained connected with them, came afterwards to be only one out of many complex agencies by which the later historical Greek was moved. Athens and Sparta in the days of their might, and the inferior cities in relation to them, played each their own political game, in which religious considerations will be found to bear only a subordinate part. [393] The festival of the Amarynthia in Eubœa, held at the temple of Artemis of Amarynthus, was frequented by the Ionic Chalcis and Eretria as well as by the Dryopic Karystus. In a combat proclaimed between Chalcis and Eretria, to settle the question about the possession of the plain of Lelantum, it was stipulated that no missile weapons should be used by either party; this agreement was inscribed and recorded in the temple of Artemis (Strabo x. p. 448; Livy, xxxv. 38).