The Greeks of Europe had been comprehended by the Roman republic under a single governorship named after the chief country Macedonia. When this was administratively dissolved at the beginning of the imperial period, there was at the same time conferred on the whole Greek name a religious bond of union, which attached itself to the old Delphic Amphictiony introduced for the sake of "a peace of God" and then misused for political ends. Under the Roman republic it had been in the main brought back to the original foundations; Macedonia as well as Aetolia, both of which had intruded as usurpers, were again eliminated, and the Amphictiony once more embraced not all, but most, of the tribes of Thessaly and of Greece proper. Augustus caused the league to be extended to Epirus and Macedonia, and thereby made it in substance the representative of the Hellenic land in the wider sense alone suited to this epoch. A privileged position in this union alongside of the time-honoured Delphi was occupied by the two cities of Athens and Nicopolis, the former the capital of the old, the latter, according to Augustus's design, that of the new imperial, Hellenic body.[146] This new Amphictiony has a certain resemblance to the diet of the three Gauls (p. 93); just like the altar of the emperor at Lyons for this diet, the temple of the Pythian Apollo was the religious centre of the Greek provinces. But, while to the former withal a directly political activity was conceded, the Amphictions of this epoch, in addition to the religious festivals proper, simply attended to the administration of the Delphic sanctuary and of its still considerable revenues.[147] If its president in later times ascribed to himself "Helladarchy," this rule over Greece was simply an ideal conception.[148] But the official conserving of the Greek nationality remained always a token of the attitude which the new imperialism occupied towards it, and of its Philhellenism, far surpassing that of the republic. [Sidenote: Province of Achaia.]