These are the elements of union—over and above the common territory, described in the last chapter—with which the historical Hellens take their start: community of blood, language, religious point of view, legends, sacrifices, festivals,[406] and also (with certain allowances) of manners and character. The analogy of manners and character between the rude inhabitants of the Arcadian Kynætha[407] and the polite Athens, was indeed accompanied with wide differences: yet if we compare the two with foreign contemporaries, we shall find certain negative characteristics, of much importance, common to both. In no city of historical Greece did there prevail either human sacrifices,[408]—or deliberate mutilation, such as cutting off the nose, ears, hands, feet, etc.,—or castration,—or selling of children into slavery,—or polygamy,—or the feeling of unlimited obedience towards one man: all customs which might be pointed out as existing among the contemporary Carthaginians, Egyptians, Persians, Thracians,[409] etc. The habit of running, wrestling, boxing, etc., in gymnastic contests, with the body perfectly naked,—was common to all Greeks, having been first adopted as a Lacedæmonian fashion in the fourteenth Olympiad: Thucydidês and Herodotus remark, that it was not only not practised, but even regarded as unseemly, among non-Hellens.[410] Of such customs, indeed, at once common to all the Greeks, and peculiar to them as distinguished from others, we cannot specify a great number; but we may see enough to convince ourselves that there did really exist, in spite of local differences, a general Hellenic sentiment and character, which counted among the cementing causes of an union apparently so little assured. [406] See this point strikingly illustrated by Plato, Repub. v. pp. 470-471 (c. 16), and Isocrates, Panegyr. p. 102. [407] Respecting the Arcadian Kynætha, see the remarkable observations of Polybius iv. 17-23. [408] See above, vol. i. ch. vi. p. 126 of this History.