The establishment of the Macedonian Empire wrought momentous changes in the civic-political religion of Hellas; and some of these were in the direction of loss and decay, while others worked for the birth of new religious life. The political significance of Apollo of Delphi, of Zeus and Athena, the divine leaders of the Polis in its counsels and ambitions, was doomed to pass away. Athena, as the warder and counsellor, was of less avail for Athens than were the Samothracian sea-deities for the victorious Demetrios. Certainly in the first centuries of the Hellenistic age there were few external signs of decay; we do not yet hear of ruined shrines or the decline of great festivals such as the Delia; Athena, though no longer the goddess of a civic Empire, was still and for ages yet remained the benign Madonna for the Athenian, to whose care the boy-athlete and the marriageable girl were dedicated; we have record from the island of Tenos[137.1] of the abiding hold that even such a deity as Poseidon still exercised on the affections of his people, as late as the second and first centuries B.C.; and if we had continuous chronicles of each cult-centre we should probably find similar evidence showing that the dominant {138} figures of the old polytheism were still able to fulfil in some degree the religious wants of the individual worshipper. And scholars who have been tempted to ante-date the decay of Hellenic polytheism have ignored, among other evidence, this important historic fact that in the fourth century it was still vital enough to make foreign conquests, to penetrate and take possession of Carthage, for instance, and that in the third century it began to secure for itself a new lease of life within the city and the growing Empire of Rome; in fact, the last chapter of Greek religion falls within the Roman imperial period. _Growing force of personal religion_.--Yet the Hellene in the fourth century and in the early days of Macedonian ascendancy began to crave other outlets for his religious emotion than the traditional cults of his phratry or tribe or city. Personal religion was beginning to be a more powerful impulse and to stimulate a craving in the individual for a more intimate union with the divinity, such, for instance, as was offered freely by the Great Mysteries of Eleusis. And we have fairly sufficient evidence that the fourth century witnessed a great extension of their influence.[138.1] The mysteries of Megalopolis were instituted and those of Andania were reorganised by their aid; and the first Ptolemy is said to have invited an apostle from Eleusis to assist in some religious institutions of his new city of Alexandria.[138.2]