We can see the same tendency in a more extreme form in the deification of human beings. Though some examples of this occur earlier, especially in the case of the heroes or founders of cities, these are not placed on a level with the gods; but the worship of Alexander, and in imitation of him, of his successors, placed him in a distinctly divine rank. It is difficult to say how far this was due to non-Hellenic influences. In the case of Alexander, with his marvellous, almost superhuman achievements, and his final solution of the great drama of the contest of East and West, such idealisation is easy to understand; and we find not only that Alexander is himself represented as a god, but that his expression and cast of features come to affect the sculpture of his age, even in the representations of the gods themselves. On coins, too, his head occurs; an honour that before his time was not given to mere mortals. In other cases this worship of men reached a pitch which was a matter of shame to the later Greeks; thus Demetrius Poliorcetes, when he gave Athens back her freedom, was welcomed at the city with divine honours. Even hymns were composed in his honour, of which we find specimens preserved.[7] After welcoming his advent at the same time as that of Demeter, the poet addresses him thus:--"Other gods are either far away, or they have no ears, or they exist not, or have no care for us. But we see thee, a present deity, not of wood or stone, but real; therefore we pray to thee." It is true that such materialistic and atheistic expressions were probably reprobated by many at the time, as well as by later writers; but the mere possibility of their public enunciation shows how far the Athenians had gone from their old religious beliefs. [Footnote 7: Athen., VI, 63.] Allegorical impersonations, such as that of Antioch, are religious conceptions of a high order compared to this. Nevertheless, one feels that such impersonations can have no separate divine existence apart from the city or the people whom they represent. They are on a different plane of religious belief from Athena, for example, as the goddess of the city. The goddess was, indeed, in some ways representative of what was best in her chosen people; but she was not a mere symbol of its character and its greatness. She existed before it, and would continue though it should disappear from the earth, unlike the Fortune of Antioch, whose very existence was bound up with that of the city she represented.