The Hellens were all of common blood and parentage,—were all descendants of the common patriarch Hellen. In treating of the historical Greeks, we have to accept this as a datum: it represents the sentiment under the influence of which they moved and acted. It is placed by Herodotus in the front rank, as the chief of those four ties which bound together the Hellenic aggregate: 1. Fellowship of blood; 2. Fellowship of language; 3. Fixed domiciles of gods, and sacrifices, common to all; 4. Like manners and dispositions. _These_ (say the Athenians, in their reply to the Spartan envoys, in the very crisis of the Persian invasion) “Athens will never disgrace herself by betraying.” And Zeus Hellenius was recognized as the god watching over and enforcing the fraternity thus constituted.[367] [367] Herod. viii. 144. ...τὸ Ἑλληνικὸν ἐὸν ὅμαιμόν τε καὶ ὁμόγλωσσον, καὶ θεῶν ἱδρύματά τε κοινὰ καὶ θυσίαι, ἤθεα τε ὁμότροπα· τῶν προδότας γενέσθαι Ἀθηναίους οὐκ ἂν εὖ ἔχοι. (_Ib._ x. 7.) Ἡμεῖς δὲ, Δία τε Ἑλλήνιον αἰδεσθέντες, καὶ τὴν Ἑλλάδα δεινὸν ποιεύμενοι προδοῦναι, etc. Compare Dikæarch. Fragm. p. 147, ed. Fuhr; and Thucyd. iii. 59,—τὰ κοινὰ τῶν Ἑλλήνων νόμιμα... θεοὺς τοὺς ὁμοβωμίους καὶ κοινοὺς τῶν Ἑλλήνων: also, the provision about the κοινὰ ἱερὰ in the treaty between Sparta and Athens (Thuc. v. 18; Strabo, ix. p. 419). It was a part of the proclamation solemnly made by the Eumolpidæ, prior to the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries, “All non-Hellens to keep away,”—εἴργεσθαι τῶν ἱερῶν (Isocrates, Orat. iv. Panegyr. p. 74).