^{pade 106 note 3} For some reason not yet explained, Thessaly was backward and comparatively savage from Homer's day onward. Hence the ἀεικέα ἔργα of even the glorious Achilles, who also is the only Achaian to believe in the efficacy of grave-gifts, an idea which the more enlightened Trojans have left behind them (Χ, 513, contrast ψ 171–183). That any important cult, save perhaps that of Asklepios, came from this intellectually dead region is an assertion which will need much proof to make it credible. It had reached something like Homeric culture when the chief states of Greece had modern civilisations.