s time the most beautiful man in
Greece. The leader who had guided a band of colonists and founded a
city became for the inhabitants the Founder; a temple was raised to
him and every year sacrifices were offered to him. The Athenian
Miltiades was thus worshipped in a city of Thrace. The Spartiate
Brasidas, killed in the defence of Amphipolis, had divine honors paid
to him in that city, for the inhabitants had come to regard him as
their Founder.

=Presence of the Heroes.=--The hero continued to reside in the place
where his body was interred, either in his tomb or in the
neighborhood. A story told by Herodotus (v. 67) depicts this belief in
a lively way. The city of Sicyon adored the hero Adrastus and in a
public place was a chapel dedicated to his honor. Cleisthenes, the
tyrant of Sicyon, took a fancy to rid himself of this hero. He went to
the oracle at Delphi to ask if it would aid him in expelling Adrastus.
The oracle replied to his question that Adrastus was king of the
Sicyonians and Cleisthenes was a brigand. The tyrant, not daring to
evict the hero, adopted a ruse; he sent to Thebes to seek the bones
of Melanippus, another hero, and installed them with great pomp in the
sanctuary of the city. "He did this," says Herodotus, "because
Melanippus during his life had been the greatest enemy of Adrastus and
had killed his brother and his son-in-law." Then he transferred to
Melanippus the festivals and the sacrifices formerly paid to the honor
of Adrastus. He was persuaded, and all the Greeks with him, that the
hero would be irritated and would flee.

=Intervention of the Heroes.=--The heroes have divine power; like the
gods, they can according to their whim send good or evil. The poet
Stesichorus had spoken ill of the famous Helen (that Helen who the
legend states was carried away to Troy); he suddenly became blind;
when he retracted what he had said, the heroine restored his sight.

The protecting heroes of a city kept it from plagues and famine and
even fought against its enemies. At the battle of the Marathon the
Athenian soldiers saw in the midst of them Theseus, the mythical
founder of Athens, clad in shining armor. During the battle of Salamis
the heroes Ajax and Telamon, once kings of Salamis, appeared on the
highest point of the island extending their hands to the Greek fleet.
"It is not we," said Themistocles, "that have vanquished the Persians;
it is the gods and heroes." In "OEdipus at Colonus," a traged