Note 31:1 — Chapter II

The main causes of invented legends are: first, the glorification of national heroes; secondly, the desire of chronographers to obtain synchronisms, and make the heroes of one place contemporaneous with, and related to, those of another. In the former case it is generally an older or better known story which is transferred to the new case, with more or less modification; in the latter there may be deliberate fraud, as Holm has argued. Of all old Greek legend the chronology is the most suspicious part, because this has been invented in comparatively late times, and by learned men, not by, but for, the people.