In a deity essentially Greek, a Phoenician colonist may discover something familiar, and claim an ancestral god.

He imparts to the native deity some Phoenician features--an Egyptian or an Asiatic succeeds him--discovers a similar likeness--introduces similar innovations.

The lively Greek receives--amalgamates--appropriates all: but the aboriginal deity is not the less Greek.

Each speculator may be equally right in establishing a partial resemblance, precisely because all speculators are wrong in asserting a perfect identity.
It follows as a corollary from the above reasonings, that the religion of Greece was much less uniform than is popularly imagined; 1st, because each separate state or canton had its own peculiar deity; 2dly, because, in the foreign communication of new gods, each stranger would especially import the deity that at home he had more especially adored.

Hence to every state its tutelary god--the founder of its greatness, the guardian of its renown.