bonds, the spells, and the names which compel us; were it not for the names by which you have constrained us, we would not have answered to your call.” ’ ”(1447) So, too, “the Chinese of ancient times were dominated by the notion that beings are intimately associated with their names, so that a man’s knowledge of the name of a spectre might enable him to exert power over the latter and to bend it to his will.”(1448) (M237) The belief in the magic virtue of divine names was shared by the Romans. When they sat down before a city, the priests addressed the guardian deity of the place in a set form of prayer or incantation, inviting him to abandon the beleaguered city and come over to the Romans, who would treat him as well as or better than he had ever been treated in his old home. Hence the name of the guardian deity of Rome was kept a profound secret, lest the enemies of the republic might lure him away, even as the Romans themselves had induced many gods to desert, like rats, the falling fortunes of cities that had sheltered them in happier days.(1449) Nay, the real name, not merely of its guardian deity, but of the city itself, was wrapt in mystery and might never be uttered, not even in the sacred rites. A certain Valerius Soranus, who dared to divulge the priceless secret, was put to death or came to a bad end.(1450) In like manner, it seems, the ancient Assyrians were forbidden to mention the mystic names of their cities;(1451) and down to modern times the Cheremiss of the Caucasus keep the names of their communal villages secret from motives of superstition.(1452) (M238) If the reader has had the patience to follow this long and perhaps tedious examination of the superstitions attaching to personal names, he will probably agree that the mystery in which the names of royal personages are so often shrouded is no isolated phenomenon, no arbitrary expression of courtly servility and adulation, but merely the particular application of a general law of primitive thought, which includes within its scope common folk and gods as well as kings and priests. § 6. Common Words tabooed.