There thus arose a traditional, historic, and patriotic feeling which bound together all Greek-speaking peoples, whether actually descendants from the Hellenic race or not. It existed in all sections of the community and led to a pride of race which has rarely been equalled. One curious illustration of the affection which existed for their reputed ancestors is noted by Dean Stanley and other writers. In mediaeval pictures still remaining in the monasteries of Mount Athos and elsewhere, the originals of which were painted many centuries ago, Pericles and Leonidas and other great men of their race are introduced among the occupants of heaven. The wealthier classes, the scholars, the nobles and their wives, down to the last period of the existence of the empire aimed at speaking and writing Greek with elegance and purity. They recognised that they were the heirs of literary treasures which were greater than those possessed by any other European people. They realised that in the long series of Greek authors from classical times down through nearly two thousand years to the period in which they were living they had an historical literature longer and more complete than any race known to them. [Sidenote: Disappearance of books after 1204.] There had been indeed dark periods in the literary history of the empire as in that of other countries. In Constantinople during the four centuries which preceded the Turkish conquest, though to a less extent than in Western Europe, learning and literature had been largely neglected. After the time of the great scholar Photius (patriarch of Constantinople between 877 and 885) few works of importance had been produced. The students of Constantinople had come to take but small interest in any study which did not concern theology, law, or history. Possibly they ceased even to guard the treasures they possessed with the like care which their predecessors had shown. Many valuable manuscripts disappeared. The Latin conquerors are admittedly responsible for the destruction of a large number of books. In the _Myriobiblion_ of Photius, an abridgment of two hundred and eighty authors which is rich in extracts from historians, he gives us all we possess of certain writers. But two thirds of the works he enumerates have been lost since the time of the Fourth Crusade and will probably never be recovered.[540] No writer quotes any of the lost authors after 1204.[541] [Sidenote: Service rendered by empire in preserving Greek language and literature.]