One of the characteristics of the period of the Diadochi is the accumulation of capital and military force in the hands of individuals. The Ptolemies and Seleucidae had at any moment at their disposal powers very much greater than any Pericles or Nicias or Lysander.[155:1] The folk of the small cities of the Aegean hinterlands must have felt towards these great strangers almost as poor Indian peasants in time of flood and famine feel towards an English official. There were men now on earth who could do the things that had hitherto been beyond the power of man. Were several cities thrown down by earthquake; here was one who by his nod could build them again. Famines had always occurred and been mostly incurable. Here was one who could without effort allay a famine. Provinces were harried and wasted by habitual wars: the eventual conqueror had destroyed whole provinces in making the wars; now, as he had destroyed, he could also save. 'What do you mean by a god,' the simple man might say, 'if these men are not gods? The only difference is that these gods are visible, and the old gods no man has seen.' The titles assumed by all the divine kings tell the story clearly. Antiochus Epiphanês--'the god made manifest'; Ptolemaios Euergetês, Ptolemaios Sôtêr. Occasionally we have a Keraunos or a Nikator, a 'Thunderbolt' or a 'God of Mana', but mostly it is Sôtêr, Euergetês and Epiphanês, the Saviour, the Benefactor, the God made manifest, in constant alternation. In the honorific inscriptions and in the writings of the learned, philanthropy (φιλανθρωπία) is by far the most prominent characteristic of the God upon earth. Was it that people really felt that to save or benefit mankind was a more godlike thing than to blast and destroy them? Philosophers have generally said that, and the vulgar pretended to believe them. It was at least politic, when ministering to the half-insane pride of one of these princes, to remind him of his mercy rather than of his wrath. Wendland in his brilliant book, _Hellenistisch-römische Kultur_, calls attention to an inscription of the year 196 B. C. in honour of the young Ptolemaios Epiphanês, who was made manifest at the age of twelve years.[156:1] It is a typical document of Graeco-Egyptian king-worship: