Even in the 4th century its Hellenization was still far from complete; but Christianity had assimilated so much of the older Hellenic culture that the Church was now a main propagator of Hellenism in the backward regions.
Even during the temporary Hellenization in the second great period the character of the people as a whole was untouched by the various external influences which produced so great an effect on the upper classes.
A few vases of the first period were found, but practically all the tombs explored in 1898 belonged to the fourth period (70050o B.C.) and show the gradual process of Hellenization among the Sicels.
This process of Hellenization, or at least its final stage, was further regarded as intimately connected with a movement of peoples which had brought the " Dorians " from the northern highlands into those parts of Greece which they occupied in historic times.
The fact that they copied the form in which the heathen revelations were conveyed (Greek hexameter verses) and the Homeric language is evidence of a degree of external Hellenization, which is an important fact in the history of post-exilic Judaism.
