Among the Greeks, heroes, reputed to be the mortal sons of some divinity, were specially honoured in the city with which they were connected by birth and through the benefits they had conferred upon it. After death they became the patrons and protectors of these towns. Every country, nay, almost every village, had such local divinities to whom monuments were raised and whom the people invoked in their prayers. The centre of devotion was generally the hero’s tomb, which was often erected in the middle of the agora, the nave of public life. In most cases it was sheltered by a building, a sort of chapel known as ἡρῷον. The celebrated temples, too, were not infrequently adorned with a great number of cenotaphs of heroes, just as the shrines of Saints are honoured in Christian churches.[62] More, the translations of the bones or ashes of heroes were common in Greece. Thus in the archonship of Apsephion, 469 B.C., the remains of Theseus were brought from Scyros to Athens, and carried into the city amid sacrifices and every demonstration of triumphal joy.[63] Thebes recovered from Ilion the bones of Hector, and presented to Athens those of Œdipus, to Lebadea those of Arcesilaus, and to Megara those of Aigialeus.[64] The analogy between these ancient practices and Christianity may be pushed further yet. Just as, in our own churches, objects that have belonged to the Saints are exposed for the veneration of the faithful, so in the old temples visitors were shown divers curiosities whose connexion with a god or a hero would command their respect. At Minihi Tréguier we may reverence a fragment of the Breviary of S. Yves, at Sens the stole of S. Thomas of Canterbury, at Bayeux the chasuble of S. Regnobert, in S. Maria Maggiore the cincture and veil of S. Scholastica; so in various localities of Greece were exhibited the cittara of Paris, the lyre of Orpheus, portions of the ships of Agamemnon and Æneas. Can anything further be needed to prove that the veneration of Holy Relics is merely a pagan survival?