Note 213 — LIFE OF SULLA.

The history of this ancient body cannot be given with any accuracy except in detail. (See the article "Amphictyons," Penny Cyclopædia.) The "royal presents" were the gifts of Crœsus, king of Lydia (in the sixth century B.C.) the most munificent of all the donors to the temple. Among his other presents Herodotus (i. 51) mentions four of these silver casks or jars, and he uses the same word that Plutarch does. The other three had probably been taken by some previous plunderer. In the Sacred war (B.C. 357) the Phokians under Philomelus took a large part of the valuable things at Delphi for the purpose of paying their troops. (Diodorus, xvi. 30.)