The Achaean league was not the first attempt at such a formation; though it was the first that ever arrived at anything like a complete scheme of federalism (unless the Aetolian preceded it); and was in many respects a fresh departure in Hellenic policy, and the first experiment in federation which seemed to contain the elements of success. From the earliest times certain Greek states had combined more or less closely, or loosely, for certain specific purposes. Such were the various Amphictyonies, and especially the Amphictyonic league of Thermopylae and Delphi. The object of these was primarily religious: the worship of a particular deity, the care of a particular temple; the first condition of membership being therefore community of blood. But though this was the origin of their being, there were elements in their constitution which might have developed into some form of federalism, had it not been for the centrifugal forces that always tended to keep Greek states apart. Thus we can conceive the idea of the Pylagorae from the various states gradually giving rise to the notion of a central parliament of elected representatives; and the sphere of its activity gradually extending to matters purely political, beginning with those which were on the borderland of religion and politics. And, indeed, the action of the great Amphictyonic league at times seemed to be approaching this.[96] But the forces tending to decentralisation were always the stronger: and though the league continued to exist for many centuries, it became less and less political, and less and less influential in Greece. So too with other combinations in Greece. The community (τὸ κοινὸν) of the Ionians, beginning with a common meeting for worship at the Panionium, on one memorable occasion at least seemed for a brief space to promise to develop into a federation for mutual succour and defence. In the Ionian revolt in B.C. 500, the deputies (πρόβουλοι) of the Ionian states met and determined to combine against the enemy; they even went so far as to appoint a common general or admiral. But the instinct of separation was too strong; at the first touch of difficulty and hardship the union was resolved into its elements.[97] The constitution of the Boeotian league was somewhat more regular and permanent. The Boeotarchs appear to have met at regular intervals, and now and again to have succeeded in mustering a national levy. There were also four regularly constituted “Senates” to control them, though we know nothing of their constitution.[98] But the league had come to nothing; partly from the resistance of the towns to the overweening pretensions of Thebes, and later from the severity of the treatment experienced by it at the hands of Alexander and his successors.