10.8.1 Some are of opinion that the assembly of the Greeks that meets at Delphi was established by Amphiktyon, the son of Deukalion, and that the delegates were styled Amphiktyones after him. But Androtion, in his history of Attica, says that originally the councillors came to Delphi from the neighboring states, that the deputies were styled Amphictions (neighbors), but that as time went on, their modern name prevailed.

10.8.2 They say that Amphiktyon himself summoned to the common assembly the following lineages [genē]of the Greek people:

10.8.3 When Brennus led the Gallic army against Delphi, no Greeks showed greater zeal for the war than the men of Phokis, and for this conduct of theirs, recovered their membership of the League, as well as their old reputation. The emperor Augustus willed that the people of Nikopolis, whose city is near Actium, should be members of the Amphiktyonic League, that the Magnesians moreover and the Malians, together with the Aenianes and Phthiōtai, should be numbered with the Thessalians, and that all their votes, together with those of the Dolopes, who were no longer a separate people, should be assigned to the people of Nikopolis.

10.8.4 The Amphiktyones today number thirty. Nikopolis, Macedonia, and Thessaly each send six deputies; the Boeotians, who in more ancient days inhabited Thessaly and were then called Aeolians, the people of Phokis and the Delphians, each send two; ancient Doris sends one.

10.8.5 The people of Lokris who are called Ozolian and the people of Lokris opposite Euboea send one each; there is also one from Euboea. Of the Peloponnesians, the Argives, Sikyonians, Corinthians, and Megarians send one, as Nikopolis send deputies to every meeting of the Amphiktyonic League; but each city of the nations mentioned has the privilege of sending members in turn after the lapse of periodic intervals.

10.8.6 When you enter the city, you see temples in a row. The first of them was in ruins, and the one next to it had neither images nor statues. The third had statues of a few Roman emperors; the fourth is called the temple of Athena Forethought. Of its two images, the one in the fore temple is a votive offering of the Massiliots and is larger than the one inside the temple. The Massiliots are a colony of Phokaia in Ionia, and their city was founded by some of those who ran away from Phokaia when attacked by Harpagus the Persian. They proved superior to the Carthaginians in a sea war, acquired the territory they now hold, and reached great prosperity.

10.8.7 The votive offering of the Massiliots is of bronze. The gold shield given to Athena Forethought by Croesus the Lydian was said by the Delphians to have been stolen by Philomēlos. Near the sanctuary of Forethought is a precinct of the hero Phylacus. This Phylacus is reported by the Delphians to have defended them at the time of the invasion of the Persians [Persai].

10.8.8 They say that in the open part of the gymnasium, there once grew a wild wood, and that Odysseus, when as the guest of Autolykos he was hunting with the sons of Autolycus, received here from the wild boar the wound above the knee. Turning to the left from the gymnasium and going down not more, I think, than three stadium-lengths, you come to a river named Pleistos. This Pleistos descends to Cirrha, the port of Delphi, and flows into the sea there.

10.8.9 Going up from the gymnasium along the way to the sacred space [hieron] [of Apollo] you reach, on the right of the way, the water of Castalia [Kastalia], which is sweet to drink and pleasant to bathe in. Some say that the spring [pēgē] was named after a native [epikhōrios] woman, others after a man called Castalius (Kastalios). But Panyassis son of Polyarkhos, who composed epic verses [epē] about Hēraklēs, says that Castalia was a daughter of Akhelōos. So, about Hēraklēs he [= Panyassis] says:

10.8.10 I have heard another account, that the water was a gift to Castalia from the river Kephisos. That is the way Alcaeus has it in his prelude [prooimion] to Apollo. There is confirmation from the Lilaeans, who, on certain specified days, have the custom [nomizein] of throwing into the spring of the river Kephisos cakes of-the-district [epi-khōria] and other things, and it is said that these reappear in Castalia.