the actual migrations and conquests of rude bands sprung from
related or allied tribes. These poetical tales, accepted throughout
Hellas as historical, convinced the people of a common origin.
Thus the Greeks had a common share in the renown of their ancient
heroes, upon whose achievements or lineage the claims of families
to hereditary authority, and of states to the leadership of
confederacies, were grounded. The pride or the ambition of political
rivals led to the gradual embellishment of these traditions, and
ended in ancestral worship. Thus Attica had a temple to Theseus,
the Ionian hero; the shrine of AEsculapius at Epidau'rus was famous
throughout the classic world; and the exploits of Hercules were
commemorated by the Dorians at the tomb of a Ne'mean king. When
the bard and the playwright clothed these tales in verse, all
Greece hearkened; and when the painter or the sculptor took these
subjects for his skill, all Greece applauded. Thus was strengthened
the national sense of fraternal blood.

The possession of a common speech is so great a means of union,
that the Romans imposed the Latin tongue on all public business
and official records, even where Greek was the more familiar
language; and the Mediaeval Church displayed her unity by the
use of Latin in every bishopric on all occasions of public worship.
A language not only makes the literature embodied in it the
heritage of all who speak it, but it diffuses among them the
subtle genius which has shaped its growth. The lofty regard in
which the Greeks held their own musical and flexible language is
illustrated by an anecdote of Themis'tocles, who put to death
the interpreter of a Persian embassy to Athens because he dared
"to use the Greek tongue to utter the demands of the barbarian
king." From Col'chis to Spain some Grecian dialect attested the