Both metropolitans and colonists styled themselves Hellens, and were recognized as such by each other; all glorying in the name as the prominent symbol of fraternity;—all describing non-Hellenic men, or cities, by a word which involved associations of repugnance. Our term _barbarian_, borrowed from this latter word, does not express the same idea; for the Greeks spoke thus indiscriminately of the extra-Hellenic world, with all its inhabitants;[364] whatever might be the gentleness of their character, and whatever might be their degree of civilization. The rulers and people of Egyptian Thebes, with their ancient and gigantic monuments, the wealthy Tyrians and Carthaginians, the phil-Hellene Arganthonius of Tartêssus, and the well-disciplined patricians of Rome (to the indignation of old Cato,[365]) were all comprised in it. At first, it seemed to have expressed more of repugnance than of contempt, and repugnance especially towards the sound of a foreign language.[366] Afterwards, a feeling of their own superior intelligence (in part well justified) arose among the Greeks, and their term _barbarian_ was used so as to imply a low state of the temper and intelligence; in which sense it was retained by the semi-Hellenized Romans, as the proper antithesis to their state of civilization. The want of a suitable word, corresponding to _barbarian_, as the Greeks originally used it, is so inconvenient in the description of Grecian phenomena and sentiments, that I may be obliged occasionally to use the word in its primitive sense. [364] See the protest of Eratosthenês against the continuance of the classification into Greek and Barbarian, after the latter word had come to imply rudeness (ap. Strabo. ii. p. 66; Eratosth. Fragm. Seidel. p. 85). [365] Cato, Fragment. ed. Lion. p. 46; ap. Plin. H. N. xxii. 1. A remarkable extract from Cato’s letter to his son, intimating his strong antipathy to the Greeks; he proscribes their medicine altogether, and admits only a slight taste of their literature: “Quod bonum sit eorum literas inspicere, non per discere.... Jurarunt inter se, Barbaros necare omnes medicinâ, sed hoc ipsum mercede faciunt, ut fides iis sit et facile disperdant. Nos quoque dictitant Barbaros et spurios, nosque magis quam alios, Opicos appellatione fœdant.” [366] Καρῶν ἠγήσατο βαρβαροφώνων, Homer, Iliad, ii. 867. Homer does not use the word βάρβαροι, or any words signifying either a Hellen generally or a non-Hellen generally (Thucyd. i. 3). Compare Strabo, viii. p. 370; and xiv. p. 662. Ovid reproduces the primitive sense of the word βάρβαρος, when he speaks of himself as an exile at Tomi (Trist. v. 10-37):— “Barbarus hic ego sum, quia non intelligor ulli.” The Egyptians had a word in their language, the exact equivalent of βάρβαρος in this sense (Herod. ii. 158).