5. These events, which from their connected form cannot be poetical fictions, give some idea of the extensive influence of the temple of Delphi, the power of which was probably at its highest pitch in the time immediately succeeding the Doric migrations. Hence also this was the epoch of the greatest influence of the Amphictyons of Thermopylæ;(1126) which confederation of Thessalian tribes, and of tribes derived from Thessaly, united the worship of the Doric temple of Apollo with that of Demeter at Thermopylæ, and thus an Hellenic and ancient Pelasgic worship were combined together,(1127) probably not without a view of forming a more intimate union between the different races of Greece. The assembling in the spring of the year at Delphi was probably copied from the meeting of the neighbouring towns, in the spring festival, at Tempe, at which business of a political kind was sometimes transacted.(1128) The power, however, of the Amphictyons of Thermopylæ was at no time actually political, and, with a very few exceptions, all their regulations and undertakings concerned the protection of the two temples in their rights and possessions, the rights of other temples in Greece, and the maintenance of some principles of international law (νόμοι Ἀμφικτυονικοὶ), founded upon religious notions. 6. The Dorian colonies introduced Apollo into Asia Minor as the principal deity of their national and federal festival on the promontory of Triopium,(1129) where they probably first planted his worship, without, however, excluding the more ancient Pelasgic rites of Demeter and the infernal gods, which, although of a different nature, were united in the ceremonies at Triopium with those of Apollo.(1130) In the same manner the twelve towns of the Æolians, with whom Apollo was by no means so nearly connected, celebrated in his honour, as it seems, their federal festival in the grove of Gryneum near Myrina.(1131) And though when the Ionians crossed over from Athens to Asia Minor they remained so constant to the worship of Poseidon that they consecrated to him their national festival at Mycale, and also built in the island of Tenos a splendid temple of Poseidon and Amphitrite, honoured with festivals and sacred embassies;(1132) yet the Cretan worship was so prevalent at Delos, when first overrun by the Ionians, that this island was itself the religious metropolis of the Cyclades,(1133) at whose festivals and contests the higher classes of the islanders attended with their families, even in ancient times; which naturally gave rise to the establishment of temples to Apollo, the principal deity, in the rest of the Cyclades; as Cythnus,(1134) Siphnus,(1135) Ceos,(1136) Naxos,(1137) &c.