The twelve constituent members were as follows: Thessalians, Boeotians,
Dorians, Ionians, Perrhaebians, Magnetes, Locrians, Oetaeans, Achaeans,
Phocians, Dolopes, and Malians. All are counted as _races_ (if we treat
the Hellenes as a race, we must call these _sub-races_), no mention
being made of cities: all count equally in respect to voting, two votes
being given by the deputies from each of the twelve: moreover, we are
told that in determining the deputies to be sent or the manner in which
the votes of each race should be given, the powerful Athens, Sparta, and
Thebes had no more influence than the humblest Ionian, Dorian, or
Boeotian city. This latter fact is distinctly stated by AEschines,
himself a Pylagore sent to Delphi by Athens. And so, doubtless, the
theory of the case stood: the votes of the Ionic races counted for
neither more nor less than two, whether given by deputies from Athens,
or from the small towns of Erythrae and Priene; and in like manner the
Dorian votes were as good in the division, when given by deputies from
Boeon and Cytinion in the little territory of Doris, as if the men
delivering them had been Spartans. But there can be as little question
that in practice the little Ionic cities and the little Doric cities
pretended to no share in the Amphictyonic deliberations. As the Ionic
vote came to be substantially the vote of Athens, so, if Sparta was ever
obstructed in the management of the Doric vote, it must have been by
powerful Doric cities like Argos or Corinth, not by the insignificant
towns of Doris. But the theory of Amphictyonic suffrage as laid down by
AEschines, however little realized in practice during his day, is
important inasmuch as it shows in full evidence the primitive and
original constitution. The first establishment of the Amphictyonic
convocation dates from a time when all the twelve members were on a
footing of equal independence, and when there were no overwhelming
cities--such as Sparta and Athens--to cast in the shade the humbler
members; when Sparta was only one Doric city, and Athens only one Ionic
city, among various others of consideration not much inferior.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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