Of the beginnings of these great solemnities we cannot presume to speak, except in mythical language; we know them only in their comparative maturity.  But the habit of common sacrifice, on a small scale and between near neighbors, is a part of the earliest habits of Greece.  The sentiment of fraternity, between two tribes or villages, first manifested itself by sending a sacred legation or Theoria to offer sacrifices to each other’s festivals and to partake in the recreations which followed; thus establishing a truce with solemn guarantee, and bringing themselves into direct connexion each with the god of the other under his appropriate local surname.  The pacific communion so fostered, and the increased assurance of intercourse, as Greece gradually emerged from the turbulence and pugnacity of the heroic age, operated especially in extending the range of this ancient habit:  the village festivals became town festivals, largely frequented by the citizens of other towns, and sometimes with special invitations sent round to attract Theors from every Hellenic community—­and thus these once humble assemblages gradually swelled into the pomp and immense confluence of the Olympic and Pythian games.  The city administering such holy ceremonies enjoyed inviolability of territory during the month of their occurrence, being itself under obligation at that time to refrain from all aggression, as well as to notify by heralds the commencement of the truce to all other cities not in avowed hostility with it.  Elis imposed heavy fines upon other towns—­even on the powerful Lacedaemon—­for violation of the Olympic truce, on pain of exclusion from the festival in case of non-payment.

Sometimes this tendency to religious fraternity took a form called an Amphictyony, different from the common festival.  A certain number of towns entered into an exclusive religious partnership for the celebration of sacrifices periodically to the god of a particular temple, which was supposed to be the common property and under the common protection of all, though one of the number was often named as permanent administrator; while all other Greeks were excluded.  That there were many religious partnerships of this sort, which have never acquired a place in history, among the early Grecian villages, we may perhaps gather from the etymology of the word Amphictyons—­designating residents around, or neighbors, considered in the point of view of fellow-religionists—­as well as from the indications preserved to us in reference to various parts of the country.  Thus there was an Amphictyony of seven cities at the holy island of Caluria, close to the harbor of Troezen.  Hermione, Epidaurus, AEgina, Athens, Prasiae, Nauplia, and Orchomenus, jointly maintained the temple and sanctuary of Poseidon in that island—­with which it would seem that the city of Troezen, though close at hand, had no connection—­meeting there at stated periods, to offer formal sacrifices.  These seven cities