Dorian
Encyclopedia
The Dorians were one of the four major ethnē into which the Ancient Greeks
, or Hellenes
, of the Classical period
considered themselves divided. Ethnos has the sense of ethnic group
. Herodotus uses the word with regard to them. They are almost always referenced as just "the Dorians", as they are in the earliest literary mention of them in Odyssey
, where they already can be found inhabiting the island of Crete
.
They were diverse in way of life and social organization, varying from the populous trade center of the city of Corinth
, known for its ornate style in art and architecture, to the isolationist, military state of Sparta
. And yet all Hellenes knew what localities were Dorian and what not. Dorian states at war could more likely than not (but not always) count on the assistance of other Dorian states. Dorians were distinguished by the Doric Greek
dialect and by characteristic social and historical traditions.
In the 5th century BC, Dorians and Ionians
were the two most politically important Greek ethne
, whose ultimate clash resulted in the Peloponnesian War
. The degree to which fifth-century Hellenes self-identified as "Ionian" or "Dorian" has itself been disputed. At one extreme Édouard Will concludes that there was no true ethnic component in fifth-century Greek culture, in spite of anti-Dorian elements in Athenian propaganda. At the other extreme John Alty reinterprets the sources to conclude that ethnicity did motivate fifth-century actions. Moderns viewing these ethnic identifications through the fifth- and fourth-century BC literary tradition have been profoundly influenced by their own social politics. Also, according to E.N. Tigerstedt, nineteenth-century European admirers of virtues they considered "Dorian" identified themselves as "Laconophile" and found responsive parallels in the culture of their day as well; their biases contribute to the traditional modern interpretation of "Dorians".
, ancient Macedonia
and Epirus
, whence obscure circumstances brought them south into the Peloponnese
, to certain Aegean islands
, Magna Graecia
, Lapithos
and Crete
. Mythology
gave them a Greek origin and eponym
ous founder, Dorus
son of Hellen
, the mythological patriarch
of the Hellenes.
and some of the islands. The geographic and ethnic information found in the west's earliest known literary work, the Iliad
, combined with the administrative records of the former Mycenaean
states prove to universal satisfaction that East Greek speakers were once dominant in the Peloponnesus but suffered a setback there and were replaced at least in official circles by West Greek speakers. A historical event is associated with the overthrow, called anciently the Return of the Heracleidai and by moderns the Dorian Invasion
.
This view of a return or invasion presupposes that West Greek speakers resided in northwest Greece but overran the Peloponnesus replacing the East Greek there with their own dialect. No other records than Mycenaean are known to have existed in the Bronze Age
, so a West Greek of that time and place cannot be proved or disproved. West Greek speakers were in western Greece in classical times. Unlike the East Greeks, they are not associated with any evidence of displacement events. This circumstance is circumstantial evidence that the Doric dialect
disseminated among the Hellenes of northwest Greece, a highly mountainous and somewhat isolated region.
On the whole, none of the objectives were met, but the investigations served to rule out various speculative hypotheses. Most scholars doubt that the Dorian invasion was the main cause of the collapse of the Mycenean civilization. The source of the West Greek speakers in the Peloponnesus remains unattested by any solid evidence.
and Sicily
, in what is now southern Italy. In Asia Minor existed the Dorian Hexapolis (the six great Dorian cities): Halikarnassos (Halicarnassus) and Knidos
(Cnidus) in Asia Minor
, Kos
, and Lindos
, Kameiros
, and Ialyssos on the island of Rhodes. These six cities would later become rivals with the Ionia
n cities of Asia Minor. The Dorians also invaded Crete
. These origin traditions remained strong into classical times: Thucydides
saw the Peloponnesian War
in part as "Ionians fighting against Dorians" and reported the tradition that the Syracusans
in Sicily were of Dorian descent. Other such "Dorian" colonies, originally from Corinth, Megara, and the Dorian islands, dotted the southern coasts of Sicily from Syracuse to Selinus. (EB 1911).
tablets at Pylos
, one of the regions later invaded and subjected by the Dorians. Pylos tablet Fn867 records it in the dative case
as do-ri-je-we, *Dōriēwei, a third or consonant declension noun with stem ending in w. An unattested nominative plural, *Dōriēwes, would have become Dōrieis by loss of the w and contraction. The tablet records the grain rations issued to the servants of "religious dignitaries" celebrating a religious festival of Potnia
, the mother goddess.
The nominative singular, Dōrieus, remained the same in the classical period. Many Linear B names of servants were formed from their home territory or the places where they came into Mycenaean ownership. According to Carl Darling Buck
, the -eus suffix was very productive. One of its uses was to convert a toponym to an anthroponym; for example, Megareus, "Megarian," from Megara
. A Dōrieus would be from Dōris, the only classical Greek state to serve as the basis for the name of the Dorians. The state is a small one in the mountains of west central Greece. However, classical Doris
may not have been the same as Mycenaean Doris.
A number of credible etymologies by noted scholars have been proposed. Julius Pokorny
derives Dorian from dōris, "woodland" (which can also mean upland). The dōri- segment is from the o-grade (either ō or o) of Proto-Indo-European
*deru-, "tree", which also gives the Homeric Δούρειος Ἱππος (Dourios Hippos: Wooden Horse). This derivation has the advantage of naming the people after their wooded, mountainous country.
word exploit similar-sounding Indo-European roots. Greek doru, "lance," is from the o-grade of Indo-European *deru, "solid," in the sense of wood. It is similar to an extended form, *dō-ro-, of *dō-, (give), as can be seen in the modern Greek imperative δὼσε (dōse: give - sing.) appearing in Greek as δῶρον (dōron: gift). This is the path taken by Jonathan Hall, relying on elements taken from the myth of the Return of the Herakeidai.
Hall cites the tradition, based on a fragment of the poet, Tyrtaios, that "Sparta is a divine gift granted by Zeus and Hera" to the Heracleidae. In another version, Tyndareus
gives his kingdom to Heracles in gratitude for restoring him to the throne, but Heracles "asks the Spartan king to safeguard the gift until his decendants might claim it."
Hall therefore proposes that the Dorians are the people of the gift. They assumed the name on taking possession of Lacedaemon. Doris was subsequently named after them. Hall makes comparisons of Spartans to Hebrews as a chosen people maintaining a covenant with God and being assigned a Holy Land. To arrive at this view Hall relies on Herodotus' version of the myth (see below) that the Hellenes under Dorus did not take his name until reaching the Peloponnesus. In other versions the Heracleidae enlisted the help of their Dorian neighbors. Hall does not address the problem of the Dorians not calling Lacedaemon Doris, but assigning that name to some less holy and remoter land. Similarly, he does not mention the Dorian servant at Pylos, whose sacred gift, if such it was, was still being ruled by the Achaean Atreid family at Lacedaemon.
, Crete
, southwest Asia Minor
, the southernmost islands in the Aegean Sea
, and various cities of Southern Italy
and Sicily
. After the classical period it was mainly replaced by the Attic
, upon which the Koine
or common Greek language of the Hellenistic period was based. The main characteristic of Doric was the preservation of Indo-European
[aː], long ‹α›, which in Attic-Ionic became ɛː, ‹η›; as an example, the famous last farewell before the battle by Spartan mothers to their warrior sons giving them their shields "Ἤ τὰν ἤ ἐπὶ τὰς" (E tan e epi tas: either with it or on it - either you return with the shield or you are carried back dead on it) would have been "Ἤ τήν ἤ ἐπὶ τῆς" (E ten e epi tes) if it had been uttered by an Atic-Ionic speaker, such as an Athenian mother. Tsakonian Greek
, a descendant of Doric Greek is still spoken in some regions of the Southern Argolid coast of the Peloponnese, on the coast of the modern prefecture of Arcadia
.
revolving round a cycle of festivals of which the Hyacinthia
and the Carneia were especially important.
The Dorian mode
in music also was attributed to Doric societies and was associated by classical writers with martial qualities.
The Doric order
of architecture in the tradition inherited by Vitruvius
included the Doric column, noted for its simplicity and strength.
Dorian women had a distinctive dress, a tunic (plain dress) not needing to be pinned with brooches, which was once common to all the Hellenes. The Ionian women adopted a new dress with a brooch.
, the Dorians are mentioned by many authors. The chief classical authors to relate their origins are Herodotus
, Thucydides
and Pausanias
. The most copious authors, however, lived in Hellenistic and Roman times, long after the main events. This apparent paradox does not necessarily discredit the later writers, who were relying on earlier works that did not survive. The customs of the Sparta
n state and its illustrious individuals are detailed at great length in such authors as Plutarch
and Diodorus Siculus
.
has one reference to the Dorians:
The reference is not compatible with a Dorian invasion
that brought Dorians to Crete only after the fall of the Mycenaean states. In the Odyssey, Odysseus and his relatives visit those states. Two solutions are possible, either the Odyssey is anachronistic or Dorians were on Crete in Mycenaean times. The uncertain nature of the Dorian invasion defers a definitive answer until more is known about it.
, a lame Athenian warrior-poet, became advisor of the Lacedaemonians in their mid-7th-century war to suppress a rebellion of the Messenia
ns. The latter were a remnant of the Achaeans conquered "two generations before," which suggests a rise to supremacy at the end of the Dark Age rather than during and after the fall of Mycenae. The Messenian population was reduced to serfdom.
Only a few fragments of Tyrtaeus' five books of martial verse survive. His is the earliest mention of the three Dorian tribes: Pamphyli
, Hylleis, Dymanes
. He also says:
Erineus was a village of Doris. He helped to establish the Spartan constitution, giving the kings and elders, among other powers, the power to dismiss the assembly. He established a rigorous military training program for the young including songs and poems he wrote himself, such as the "Embateria or Songs of the Battle-Charge which are also called Enoplia or Songs-under-Arms." These were chants used to establish the timing of standard drills under arms. He stressed patriotism:
Herodotus
was from Halicarnassus
, a Dorian colony on the southwest coast of Asia Minor
; following the literary tradition of the times he wrote in Ionic Greek
, being one of the last authors to do so. He described the Persian Wars, giving a thumbnail account of the histories of the antagonists, Greeks and Persians.
Herodotus gives a general account of the events termed "the Dorian Invasion," presenting them as transfers of population. Their original home was in northern central Greece next to Thessaly
:
He goes on to expand in mythological terms, giving some of the geographic details of the myth:
Thus, according to Herodotus, the Dorians did not name themselves after Dorus until they had reached Peloponnesus. Herodotus does not explain the contradictions of the myth; for example, how Doris, located outside the Peloponnesus, acquired its name. However, his goal, as he relates in the beginning of the first book, is only to report what he had heard from his sources without judgement. In the myth, the Achaeans displaced from the Peloponnesus gathered at Athens under a leader Ion
and became identified as "Ionians".
Herodotus' list of Dorian states is as follows. From northeastern Greece were Phthia
, Histiaea
and Macedon
. In central Greece were Doris
(the former Dryopia) and in the south Peloponnesus
, specifically the states of Lacedaemon
, Corinth
, Sicyon
, Epidaurus
and Troezen
. Hermione was not Dorian but had joined the Dorians. Overseas were the islands of Rhodes
, Cos
, Nisyrus
and the Anatolia
n cities of Cnidus
, Halicarnassus
, Phaselis
and Calydna. Dorians also colonised Crete
including founding of such towns as Lato
, Dreros
and Olous
. The Cynurians were originally Ionians
but had become Dorian under the influence of their Argive
masters.
professes little of Greece before the Trojan War
except to say that it was full of barbarians and that there was no distinction between barbarians and Greeks. The Hellenes came from Phthiotis
. The whole country indulged in and suffered from piracy and was not settled. After the Trojan War, "Hellas was still engaged in removing and settling."
Some 60 years after the Trojan War the Boeotia
ns were driven out of Arne
by the Thessalians
into Boeotia and 20 years later "the Dorians and the Heraclids became masters of the Peloponnese." So the lines were drawn between the Dorians and the Aeolians
(here Boeotians) with the Ionians
(former Peloponnesians).
Other than these few brief observations Thucydides names but few Dorians. He does make it clear that some Dorian states aligned or were forced to align with the Athenians while some Ionians went with the Lacedaemonians and that the motives for alignment were not always ethnic but were diverse. Among the Dorians was Lacedaemon, Corcyra, Corinth
and Epidamnus, Leucadia
, Ambracia
, Potidaea
, Rhodes
, Cythera, Argos
, Carystus
, Syracuse, Gela
, Acragas
(later Agrigentum), Acrae, Casmenae.
He does explain with considerable dismay what happened to incite ethnic war after the unity between the Greek states during the Battle of Thermopylae
. The Congress of Corinth, formed prior to it, "split into two sections." Athens headed one and Lacedaemon the other:
He adds: "the real cause I consider to be ... the growth of the power of Athens and the alarm which this inspired in Lacedaemon...."
relates that the Achaeans
of the Peloponnesus were driven from their lands by Dorians coming from Oeta
, a mountainous region bordering on Thessaly
. They were led by Hyllus
, a son of Heracles
, but were defeated by the Achaeans. Under other leadership they managed to be victorious over the Achaeans and remain in the Peloponnesus, a mythic theme called "the return of the Heracleidae
." They had built ships at Naupactus
in which to cross the Gulf of Corinth
. This invasion is viewed by the tradition of Pausanias as a return of the Dorians to the Peloponnesus, apparently meaning a return of families ruling in Aetolia
and northern Greece to a land in which they had once had a share. The return is described in detail: there were "disturbances" throughout the Peloponnesus except in Arcadia
, and new Dorian settlers. Pausanias goes on to describe the conquest and resettlement of Laconia
, Messenia
, Argos
and elsewhere, and the emigration from there to Crete
and the coast of Asia Minor
.
Heracles
was a Perseid, a member of the ruling family of Greece. His mother Alcmene
had both Perseids and Pelopids
in her ancestry. A princess of the realm, she received Zeus thinking he was Amphitryon
. Zeus intended his son to rule Greece but according to the rules of succession Eurystheus
, born slightly earlier, preempted the right. Attempts to kill Hercules as a child failed. On adulthood he was forced into the service of Eurystheus, who commanded him to perform 12 labors.
Heracles became a warrior without a home, wandering from place to place assisting the local rulers with various problems. He took a retinue of Arcadians with him acquiring also over time a family of grown sons, the Heraclidae. He continued this mode of life even after completing the 12 labors. The legend has it that he became involved with Achaean Sparta when the family of king Tyndareus
was unseated and driven into exile by Hippocoön and his family, who in the process happened to kill the son of a friend of Heracles. The latter and his retinue assaulted Sparta, taking it back from Hippocoön. He recalled Tyndareus, set him up as a guardian regent, and instructed him to turn the kingdom over to any descendants of his that should claim it. Heracles went on with the way of life to which he had become accustomed, which was by today's standards that of a mercenary, as he was being paid for his assistance. Subsequently he founded a colony in Aetolia
, then in Trachis
.
After displacing the Dryopes, he went to the assistance of the Dorians, who lived in a land called Hestiaeotis under king Aegimius
and were campaigning against the numerically superior Lapithae. The Dorians promised him 1/3 of Doris (which they did not yet possess). He asked Aegimius to keep his share of the land "in trust" until it should be claimed by a descendant. He went on to further adventures but was poisoned by his jealous wife, Deianeira. He immolated himself in full armor dressed for combat and "passed from among men into the company of the gods."
Beside this sole reference to Dorians in Crete, the mention of the Iliad
on the Heraclid
Tlepolemus
, a warrior on the side of Achaeans and colonist of three important Dorian cities in Rhodes
has been also regarded as a later interpolation
Mythology
History
List of Dorian states
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
, or Hellenes
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
, of the Classical period
Classical Greece
Classical Greece was a 200 year period in Greek culture lasting from the 5th through 4th centuries BC. This classical period had a powerful influence on the Roman Empire and greatly influenced the foundation of Western civilizations. Much of modern Western politics, artistic thought, such as...
considered themselves divided. Ethnos has the sense of ethnic group
Ethnic group
An ethnic group is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage, often consisting of a common language, a common culture and/or an ideology that stresses common ancestry or endogamy...
. Herodotus uses the word with regard to them. They are almost always referenced as just "the Dorians", as they are in the earliest literary mention of them in Odyssey
Odyssey
The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...
, where they already can be found inhabiting the island of Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
.
They were diverse in way of life and social organization, varying from the populous trade center of the city of Corinth
Ancient Corinth
Corinth, or Korinth was a city-state on the Isthmus of Corinth, the narrow stretch of land that joins the Peloponnesus to the mainland of Greece, roughly halfway between Athens and Sparta. The modern town of Corinth is located approximately northeast of the ancient ruins...
, known for its ornate style in art and architecture, to the isolationist, military state of Sparta
Sparta
Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...
. And yet all Hellenes knew what localities were Dorian and what not. Dorian states at war could more likely than not (but not always) count on the assistance of other Dorian states. Dorians were distinguished by the Doric Greek
Doric Greek
Doric or Dorian was a dialect of ancient Greek. Its variants were spoken in the southern and eastern Peloponnese, Crete, Rhodes, some islands in the southern Aegean Sea, some cities on the coasts of Asia Minor, Southern Italy, Sicily, Epirus and Macedon. Together with Northwest Greek, it forms the...
dialect and by characteristic social and historical traditions.
In the 5th century BC, Dorians and Ionians
Ionians
The Ionians were one of the four major tribes into which the Classical Greeks considered the population of Hellenes to have been divided...
were the two most politically important Greek ethne
Ethnic group
An ethnic group is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage, often consisting of a common language, a common culture and/or an ideology that stresses common ancestry or endogamy...
, whose ultimate clash resulted in the Peloponnesian War
Peloponnesian War
The Peloponnesian War, 431 to 404 BC, was an ancient Greek war fought by Athens and its empire against the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta. Historians have traditionally divided the war into three phases...
. The degree to which fifth-century Hellenes self-identified as "Ionian" or "Dorian" has itself been disputed. At one extreme Édouard Will concludes that there was no true ethnic component in fifth-century Greek culture, in spite of anti-Dorian elements in Athenian propaganda. At the other extreme John Alty reinterprets the sources to conclude that ethnicity did motivate fifth-century actions. Moderns viewing these ethnic identifications through the fifth- and fourth-century BC literary tradition have been profoundly influenced by their own social politics. Also, according to E.N. Tigerstedt, nineteenth-century European admirers of virtues they considered "Dorian" identified themselves as "Laconophile" and found responsive parallels in the culture of their day as well; their biases contribute to the traditional modern interpretation of "Dorians".
Origin of the Dorians
Accounts vary as to their place of origin. One theory widely believed in ancient times, is that they originated in the north, north-eastern mountainous regions of GreeceGreece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, ancient Macedonia
Macedon
Macedonia or Macedon was an ancient kingdom, centered in the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, bordered by Epirus to the west, Paeonia to the north, the region of Thrace to the east and Thessaly to the south....
and Epirus
Epirus
The name Epirus, from the Greek "Ήπειρος" meaning continent may refer to:-Geographical:* Epirus - a historical and geographical region of the southwestern Balkans, straddling modern Greece and Albania...
, whence obscure circumstances brought them south into the Peloponnese
Peloponnese
The Peloponnese, Peloponnesos or Peloponnesus , is a large peninsula , located in a region of southern Greece, forming the part of the country south of the Gulf of Corinth...
, to certain Aegean islands
Aegean Sea
The Aegean Sea[p] is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...
, Magna Graecia
Magna Graecia
Magna Græcia is the name of the coastal areas of Southern Italy on the Tarentine Gulf that were extensively colonized by Greek settlers; particularly the Achaean colonies of Tarentum, Crotone, and Sybaris, but also, more loosely, the cities of Cumae and Neapolis to the north...
, Lapithos
Lapithos
Lapithos or Lapethos is a town of Kyrenia District on the northern coast of Cyprus. According to Strabo, the settlement was founded by Spartans. In Assyrian inscriptions, Lapithos is mentioned as one of the eleven Cypriot kingdoms. During the Persian rule, Lapithos was settled by Phoenicians...
and Crete
Ancient Crete
The term Ancient Crete refers to the civilization that existed on the island of Crete, just south of Greece, in the Mediterranean Sea. From around 3000–1100 B.C., inhabitants known as Minoans controlled the island of Crete and ruled the island autonomously...
. Mythology
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
gave them a Greek origin and eponym
Eponym
An eponym is the name of a person or thing, whether real or fictitious, after which a particular place, tribe, era, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named...
ous founder, Dorus
Dorus
-People:*Dorus de Vries, Dutch footballer*Dorus Rijkers, Dutch lifeboat captain*Stage name of Dutch comedian Tom Manders-Greek mythology:*Dorus, son of Hellen and founder of the Dorian nation*Dorus, son of Apollo and Phthia, and the father of Xanthippe...
son of Hellen
Hellen
Hellen , the son of Deucalion and Pyrrha, brother of Amphictyon and father of Aeolus, Xuthus, and Dorus. His name is also another name for Greek, meaning a person of Greek descent or pertaining to Greek culture, and the source of the adjective "Hellenic".Each of his sons founded a primary tribe of...
, the mythological patriarch
Patriarch
Originally a patriarch was a man who exercised autocratic authority as a pater familias over an extended family. The system of such rule of families by senior males is called patriarchy. This is a Greek word, a compound of πατριά , "lineage, descent", esp...
of the Hellenes.
Peloponnesian dialect replacement
The origin of the Dorians is a multi-faceted concept. In modern scholarship the term often has meant the location of the population disseminating the Doric Greek dialect within a hypothetical Proto-Greek speaking population. This dialect is known from records of classical northwest Greece, the Peloponnesus and CreteCrete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
and some of the islands. The geographic and ethnic information found in the west's earliest known literary work, the Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...
, combined with the administrative records of the former Mycenaean
Mycenaean
Mycenaean may refer to:* Something from or belonging to the ancient town of Mycenae in Peloponnese in Greece* Mycenaean Greece, the Greek-speaking regions of the Aegean Sea as of the Late Bronze Age* Mycenaean language, an ancient form of Greek...
states prove to universal satisfaction that East Greek speakers were once dominant in the Peloponnesus but suffered a setback there and were replaced at least in official circles by West Greek speakers. A historical event is associated with the overthrow, called anciently the Return of the Heracleidai and by moderns the Dorian Invasion
Dorian invasion
The Dorian invasion is a concept devised by historians of Ancient Greece to explain the replacement of pre-classical dialects and traditions in southern Greece by the ones that prevailed in Classical Greece...
.
This view of a return or invasion presupposes that West Greek speakers resided in northwest Greece but overran the Peloponnesus replacing the East Greek there with their own dialect. No other records than Mycenaean are known to have existed in the Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
, so a West Greek of that time and place cannot be proved or disproved. West Greek speakers were in western Greece in classical times. Unlike the East Greeks, they are not associated with any evidence of displacement events. This circumstance is circumstantial evidence that the Doric dialect
Doric Greek
Doric or Dorian was a dialect of ancient Greek. Its variants were spoken in the southern and eastern Peloponnese, Crete, Rhodes, some islands in the southern Aegean Sea, some cities on the coasts of Asia Minor, Southern Italy, Sicily, Epirus and Macedon. Together with Northwest Greek, it forms the...
disseminated among the Hellenes of northwest Greece, a highly mountainous and somewhat isolated region.
The Dorian invasion
The Dorian invasion is a modern historical concept attempting to account for:- at least the replacement of dialects and traditions in southern Greece in pre-classical times
- more generally, the distribution of the Dorians in Classical GreeceClassical GreeceClassical Greece was a 200 year period in Greek culture lasting from the 5th through 4th centuries BC. This classical period had a powerful influence on the Roman Empire and greatly influenced the foundation of Western civilizations. Much of modern Western politics, artistic thought, such as...
- the presence of the Dorians in Greece at all
On the whole, none of the objectives were met, but the investigations served to rule out various speculative hypotheses. Most scholars doubt that the Dorian invasion was the main cause of the collapse of the Mycenean civilization. The source of the West Greek speakers in the Peloponnesus remains unattested by any solid evidence.
Post-migrational distribution of the Dorians
Though most of the Doric invaders settled in the Peloponnese, they also settled on RhodesRhodes
Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...
and Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
, in what is now southern Italy. In Asia Minor existed the Dorian Hexapolis (the six great Dorian cities): Halikarnassos (Halicarnassus) and Knidos
Knidos
Knidos or Cnidus is an ancient settlement located in Turkey. It was an ancient Greek city of Caria, part of the Dorian Hexapolis. It was situated on the Datça peninsula, which forms the southern side of the Sinus Ceramicus, now known as Gulf of Gökova. By the fourth century BC, Knidos was located...
(Cnidus) in Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
, Kos
Kos
Kos or Cos is a Greek island in the south Sporades group of the Dodecanese, next to the Gulf of Gökova/Cos. It measures by , and is from the coast of Bodrum, Turkey and the ancient region of Caria. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within the Kos peripheral unit, which is...
, and Lindos
Lindos
Lindos is an archaeological site, a town and a former municipality on the island of Rhodes, in the Dodecanese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Rhodes, of which it is a municipal unit. It lies on the east coast of the island...
, Kameiros
Kameiros
Kameiros is an ancient city and a former municipality on the island of Rhodes, in the Dodecanese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Rhodes, of which it is a municipal unit. It lies on the northwest coast of the island. It was the heart of an agricultural...
, and Ialyssos on the island of Rhodes. These six cities would later become rivals with the Ionia
Ionia
Ionia is an ancient region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey, the region nearest İzmir, which was historically Smyrna. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements...
n cities of Asia Minor. The Dorians also invaded Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
. These origin traditions remained strong into classical times: Thucydides
Thucydides
Thucydides was a Greek historian and author from Alimos. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 BC...
saw the Peloponnesian War
Peloponnesian War
The Peloponnesian War, 431 to 404 BC, was an ancient Greek war fought by Athens and its empire against the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta. Historians have traditionally divided the war into three phases...
in part as "Ionians fighting against Dorians" and reported the tradition that the Syracusans
Syracuse, Italy
Syracuse is a historic city in Sicily, the capital of the province of Syracuse. The city is notable for its rich Greek history, culture, amphitheatres, architecture, and as the birthplace of the preeminent mathematician and engineer Archimedes. This 2,700-year-old city played a key role in...
in Sicily were of Dorian descent. Other such "Dorian" colonies, originally from Corinth, Megara, and the Dorian islands, dotted the southern coasts of Sicily from Syracuse to Selinus. (EB 1911).
Name of the Dorians
The Dorian of Bronze Age Pylos
A man's name, Dōrieus, occurs in the Linear BLinear B
Linear B is a syllabic script that was used for writing Mycenaean Greek, an early form of Greek. It pre-dated the Greek alphabet by several centuries and seems to have died out with the fall of Mycenaean civilization...
tablets at Pylos
Pylos
Pylos , historically known under its Italian name Navarino, is a town and a former municipality in Messenia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Pylos-Nestoras, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit. It was the capital of the former...
, one of the regions later invaded and subjected by the Dorians. Pylos tablet Fn867 records it in the dative case
Dative case
The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given, as in "George gave Jamie a drink"....
as do-ri-je-we, *Dōriēwei, a third or consonant declension noun with stem ending in w. An unattested nominative plural, *Dōriēwes, would have become Dōrieis by loss of the w and contraction. The tablet records the grain rations issued to the servants of "religious dignitaries" celebrating a religious festival of Potnia
Potnia
Potnia , Ancient Greek for "Mistress, Lady", title of a goddess. The word was inherited by Classical Greek from Mycenean Greek with the same meaning and it was applied to several goddesses. A similar word is the title Despoina, "the mistress", which was given to the nameless chthonian goddess of...
, the mother goddess.
The nominative singular, Dōrieus, remained the same in the classical period. Many Linear B names of servants were formed from their home territory or the places where they came into Mycenaean ownership. According to Carl Darling Buck
Carl Darling Buck
Carl Darling Buck , born in Bucksport, Maine, was an American philologist.-Biography:He graduated from Yale in 1886, was a graduate student there for three years, and studied at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens and in Leipzig .In 1892 he became professor of Sanskrit and...
, the -eus suffix was very productive. One of its uses was to convert a toponym to an anthroponym; for example, Megareus, "Megarian," from Megara
Megara
Megara is an ancient city in Attica, Greece. It lies in the northern section of the Isthmus of Corinth opposite the island of Salamis, which belonged to Megara in archaic times, before being taken by Athens. Megara was one of the four districts of Attica, embodied in the four mythic sons of King...
. A Dōrieus would be from Dōris, the only classical Greek state to serve as the basis for the name of the Dorians. The state is a small one in the mountains of west central Greece. However, classical Doris
Doris (Greece)
Doris , is a small mountainous district in ancient Greece, bounded by Aetolia, southern Thessaly, the Ozolian Locrians, and Phocis; the original homeland of the Dorian Greeks...
may not have been the same as Mycenaean Doris.
The Dorians of upland Doris
Julius Pokorny
Julius Pokorny was an Austrian linguist and scholar of the Celtic languages, particularly Irish, and a supporter of Irish nationalism. He held academic posts in Austrian and German universities.-Life:...
derives Dorian from dōris, "woodland" (which can also mean upland). The dōri- segment is from the o-grade (either ō or o) of Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European language
The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...
*deru-, "tree", which also gives the Homeric Δούρειος Ἱππος (Dourios Hippos: Wooden Horse). This derivation has the advantage of naming the people after their wooded, mountainous country.
The lancers
A second popular derivation was given by the French linguist, Émile Boisacq, from the same root, but from Greek (doru) 'spear-shaft' (which was made of wood); i.e., "the people of the spear" or "spearmen." In this case the country would be named after the people, as in Saxony from the Saxons.The chosen Greeks
It sometimes happens that different derivations of an Indo-EuropeanIndo-European
Indo-European may refer to:* Indo-European languages** Aryan race, a 19th century and early 20th century term for those peoples who are the native speakers of Indo-European languages...
word exploit similar-sounding Indo-European roots. Greek doru, "lance," is from the o-grade of Indo-European *deru, "solid," in the sense of wood. It is similar to an extended form, *dō-ro-, of *dō-, (give), as can be seen in the modern Greek imperative δὼσε (dōse: give - sing.) appearing in Greek as δῶρον (dōron: gift). This is the path taken by Jonathan Hall, relying on elements taken from the myth of the Return of the Herakeidai.
Hall cites the tradition, based on a fragment of the poet, Tyrtaios, that "Sparta is a divine gift granted by Zeus and Hera" to the Heracleidae. In another version, Tyndareus
Tyndareus
In Greek mythology, Tyndareus or Tyndareos was a Spartan king, son of Oebalus and Gorgophone , husband of Leda and father of Helen, Castor and Polydeuces, Clytemnestra, Timandra, Phoebe and Philonoe.Tyndareus had a brother named Hippocoon , who seized power and exiled Tyndareus...
gives his kingdom to Heracles in gratitude for restoring him to the throne, but Heracles "asks the Spartan king to safeguard the gift until his decendants might claim it."
Hall therefore proposes that the Dorians are the people of the gift. They assumed the name on taking possession of Lacedaemon. Doris was subsequently named after them. Hall makes comparisons of Spartans to Hebrews as a chosen people maintaining a covenant with God and being assigned a Holy Land. To arrive at this view Hall relies on Herodotus' version of the myth (see below) that the Hellenes under Dorus did not take his name until reaching the Peloponnesus. In other versions the Heracleidae enlisted the help of their Dorian neighbors. Hall does not address the problem of the Dorians not calling Lacedaemon Doris, but assigning that name to some less holy and remoter land. Similarly, he does not mention the Dorian servant at Pylos, whose sacred gift, if such it was, was still being ruled by the Achaean Atreid family at Lacedaemon.
Distinctions of language
The Doric dialect was spoken in northwest Greece, PeloponnesePeloponnese
The Peloponnese, Peloponnesos or Peloponnesus , is a large peninsula , located in a region of southern Greece, forming the part of the country south of the Gulf of Corinth...
, Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
, southwest Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
, the southernmost islands in the Aegean Sea
Aegean Sea
The Aegean Sea[p] is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...
, and various cities of Southern Italy
Magna Graecia
Magna Græcia is the name of the coastal areas of Southern Italy on the Tarentine Gulf that were extensively colonized by Greek settlers; particularly the Achaean colonies of Tarentum, Crotone, and Sybaris, but also, more loosely, the cities of Cumae and Neapolis to the north...
and Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
. After the classical period it was mainly replaced by the Attic
Attic Greek
Attic Greek is the prestige dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. Of the ancient dialects, it is the most similar to later Greek, and is the standard form of the language studied in courses of "Ancient Greek". It is sometimes included in Ionic.- Origin and range...
, upon which the Koine
Koine Greek
Koine Greek is the universal dialect of the Greek language spoken throughout post-Classical antiquity , developing from the Attic dialect, with admixture of elements especially from Ionic....
or common Greek language of the Hellenistic period was based. The main characteristic of Doric was the preservation of Indo-European
Indo-European
Indo-European may refer to:* Indo-European languages** Aryan race, a 19th century and early 20th century term for those peoples who are the native speakers of Indo-European languages...
[aː], long ‹α›, which in Attic-Ionic became ɛː, ‹η›; as an example, the famous last farewell before the battle by Spartan mothers to their warrior sons giving them their shields "Ἤ τὰν ἤ ἐπὶ τὰς" (E tan e epi tas: either with it or on it - either you return with the shield or you are carried back dead on it) would have been "Ἤ τήν ἤ ἐπὶ τῆς" (E ten e epi tes) if it had been uttered by an Atic-Ionic speaker, such as an Athenian mother. Tsakonian Greek
Tsakonian language
Tsakonian, Tsaconian, Tzakonian or Tsakonic is a Hellenic language, spoken in the Tsakonian region of the Peloponnese, Greece....
, a descendant of Doric Greek is still spoken in some regions of the Southern Argolid coast of the Peloponnese, on the coast of the modern prefecture of Arcadia
Arcadia
Arcadia is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the administrative region of Peloponnese. It is situated in the central and eastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. It takes its name from the mythological character Arcas. In Greek mythology, it was the home of the god Pan...
.
Other cultural distinctions
Culturally, in addition to their Doric dialect of Greek, Doric colonies retained their characteristic Doric calendarHellenic calendar
The Hellenic calendar—or more properly, the Hellenic calendars, for there was no uniform calendar imposed upon all of Classical Greece—began in most Greek states between Autumn and Winter except the Attic calendar, which began in June...
revolving round a cycle of festivals of which the Hyacinthia
Hyacinthia
The death of Hyacinthus was celebrated at Amyclae by the second most important of Spartan festivals, the Hyacinthia in the Spartan month Hyacinthius in early summer.-Proceedings:...
and the Carneia were especially important.
The Dorian mode
Dorian mode
Due to historical confusion, Dorian mode or Doric mode can refer to three very different musical modes or diatonic scales, the Greek, the medieval, and the modern.- Greek Dorian mode :...
in music also was attributed to Doric societies and was associated by classical writers with martial qualities.
The Doric order
Doric order
The Doric order was one of the three orders or organizational systems of ancient Greek or classical architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian.-History:...
of architecture in the tradition inherited by Vitruvius
Vitruvius
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio was a Roman writer, architect and engineer, active in the 1st century BC. He is best known as the author of the multi-volume work De Architectura ....
included the Doric column, noted for its simplicity and strength.
Dorian women had a distinctive dress, a tunic (plain dress) not needing to be pinned with brooches, which was once common to all the Hellenes. The Ionian women adopted a new dress with a brooch.
Ancient traditions
In Greek historiographyGreek historiography
The historical period of Ancient Greece is unique in world history as the first period attested directly in proper historiography, while earlier ancient history or proto-history is known by much more circumstantial evidence, such as annals, chronicles, king lists, and pragmatic epigraphy.Herodotus...
, the Dorians are mentioned by many authors. The chief classical authors to relate their origins are Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
, Thucydides
Thucydides
Thucydides was a Greek historian and author from Alimos. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 BC...
and Pausanias
Pausanias (geographer)
Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...
. The most copious authors, however, lived in Hellenistic and Roman times, long after the main events. This apparent paradox does not necessarily discredit the later writers, who were relying on earlier works that did not survive. The customs of the Sparta
Sparta
Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...
n state and its illustrious individuals are detailed at great length in such authors as Plutarch
Plutarch
Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
and Diodorus Siculus
Diodorus Siculus
Diodorus Siculus was a Greek historian who flourished between 60 and 30 BC. According to Diodorus' own work, he was born at Agyrium in Sicily . With one exception, antiquity affords no further information about Diodorus' life and doings beyond what is to be found in his own work, Bibliotheca...
.
Homer
The OdysseyOdyssey
The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...
has one reference to the Dorians:
"There is a land called CreteCreteCrete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
, in the midst of the wine-dark sea, a fair, rich land, begirt with water, and therein are many men, past counting, and ninety cities. They have not all the same speech, but their tongues are mixed. There dwell Achaeans, there great-hearted native Cretans, there Cydonians, and Dorians of waving plumes, and goodly PelasgiansPelasgiansThe name Pelasgians was used by some ancient Greek writers to refer to populations that were either the ancestors of the Greeks or who preceded the Greeks in Greece, "a hold-all term for any ancient, primitive and presumably indigenous people in the Greek world." In general, "Pelasgian" has come...
."
The reference is not compatible with a Dorian invasion
Dorian invasion
The Dorian invasion is a concept devised by historians of Ancient Greece to explain the replacement of pre-classical dialects and traditions in southern Greece by the ones that prevailed in Classical Greece...
that brought Dorians to Crete only after the fall of the Mycenaean states. In the Odyssey, Odysseus and his relatives visit those states. Two solutions are possible, either the Odyssey is anachronistic or Dorians were on Crete in Mycenaean times. The uncertain nature of the Dorian invasion defers a definitive answer until more is known about it.
Tyrtaeus
TyrtaeusTyrtaeus
Tyrtaeus was a Greek poet who composed verses in Sparta around the time of the Second Messenian War, the date of which isn't clearly establishedsometime in the latter part of the seventh century BC...
, a lame Athenian warrior-poet, became advisor of the Lacedaemonians in their mid-7th-century war to suppress a rebellion of the Messenia
Messenia
Messenia is a regional unit in the southwestern part of the Peloponnese region, one of 13 regions into which Greece has been divided by the Kallikratis plan, implemented 1 January 2011...
ns. The latter were a remnant of the Achaeans conquered "two generations before," which suggests a rise to supremacy at the end of the Dark Age rather than during and after the fall of Mycenae. The Messenian population was reduced to serfdom.
Only a few fragments of Tyrtaeus' five books of martial verse survive. His is the earliest mention of the three Dorian tribes: Pamphyli
Pamphilus (mythology)
Pamphilus , a son of Aegimius and brother of Dymas, was king of the Dorians at the foot of mount Pindus, and along with the Heracleidae invaded Peloponnesus. After him, a tribe of the Sicyonians was called Pamphyli....
, Hylleis, Dymanes
Dymas
In Greek mythology, Dymas is the name attributed to at least four individuals.- Dymas :The first Dymas was a Phrygian king and father of Hecuba , wife to King Priam of Troy...
. He also says:
"For Cronus' Son Himself, Zeus the husband of fair-crowned Hera, hath given this city to the children of Heracles, with whom we came into the wide isle of Pelops from windy Erineus."
Erineus was a village of Doris. He helped to establish the Spartan constitution, giving the kings and elders, among other powers, the power to dismiss the assembly. He established a rigorous military training program for the young including songs and poems he wrote himself, such as the "Embateria or Songs of the Battle-Charge which are also called Enoplia or Songs-under-Arms." These were chants used to establish the timing of standard drills under arms. He stressed patriotism:
"For 'tis a fair thing for a good man to fall and die fighting in the van for his native land, ... let us fight with a will for this land, and die for our children and never spare our lives."
Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
was from Halicarnassus
Halicarnassus
Halicarnassus was an ancient Greek city at the site of modern Bodrum in Turkey. It was located in southwest Caria on a picturesque, advantageous site on the Ceramic Gulf. The city was famous for the tomb of Mausolus, the origin of the word mausoleum, built between 353 BC and 350 BC, and...
, a Dorian colony on the southwest coast of Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
; following the literary tradition of the times he wrote in Ionic Greek
Ionic Greek
Ionic Greek was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek .-History:Ionic dialect appears to have spread originally from the Greek mainland across the Aegean at the time of the Dorian invasions, around the 11th Century B.C.By the end of the Greek Dark Ages in the 5th Century...
, being one of the last authors to do so. He described the Persian Wars, giving a thumbnail account of the histories of the antagonists, Greeks and Persians.
Thessaly
Thessaly is a traditional geographical region and an administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thessaly was known as Aeolia, and appears thus in Homer's Odyssey....
:
"the PelasgiansPelasgiansThe name Pelasgians was used by some ancient Greek writers to refer to populations that were either the ancestors of the Greeks or who preceded the Greeks in Greece, "a hold-all term for any ancient, primitive and presumably indigenous people in the Greek world." In general, "Pelasgian" has come...
... were once neighbors of the people now called Dorians, and at that time inhabited the country which now is called Thessalian."
He goes on to expand in mythological terms, giving some of the geographic details of the myth:
"These races, Ionian and Dorian, were the foremost in ancient time, the first a Pelasgian and the second a Hellenic people. The Pelasgian race has never yet left its home; the Hellenic has wandered often and far. For in the days of king Deucalion it inhabited the land of Phthia, then the country called Histiaean, under Ossa and Olympus, in the time of Dorus son of Hellen; driven from this Histiaean country by the Cadmeans, it settled about Pindus in the territory called Macedonian; from there again it migrated to Dryopia, and at last came from Dryopia into the Peloponnese, where it took the name of Dorian."
Thus, according to Herodotus, the Dorians did not name themselves after Dorus until they had reached Peloponnesus. Herodotus does not explain the contradictions of the myth; for example, how Doris, located outside the Peloponnesus, acquired its name. However, his goal, as he relates in the beginning of the first book, is only to report what he had heard from his sources without judgement. In the myth, the Achaeans displaced from the Peloponnesus gathered at Athens under a leader Ion
Ion (mythology)
According to Greek mythology, Ion was the illegitimate child of Creüsa, daughter of Erechtheus and wife of Xuthus. Creusa conceived Ion with Apollo then she abandoned the child. Apollo asked Hermes to take Ion from his cradle. Ion was saved by a priestess of the Delphic Oracle...
and became identified as "Ionians".
Herodotus' list of Dorian states is as follows. From northeastern Greece were Phthia
Phthia
Phthia , Phthíē ) in ancient Greece was the southernmost region of ancient Thessaly, on both sides of Othrys Mountain. It was the homeland of the Myrmidones tribe, who took part in the Trojan War under Achilles....
, Histiaea
Istiaia
Istiaia is a town and a former municipality in Euboea, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Istiaia-Aidipsos, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit. Its population is 7,353 . The town is located in the northern end of the island. It was a former...
and Macedon
Macedon
Macedonia or Macedon was an ancient kingdom, centered in the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, bordered by Epirus to the west, Paeonia to the north, the region of Thrace to the east and Thessaly to the south....
. In central Greece were Doris
Doris (Greece)
Doris , is a small mountainous district in ancient Greece, bounded by Aetolia, southern Thessaly, the Ozolian Locrians, and Phocis; the original homeland of the Dorian Greeks...
(the former Dryopia) and in the south Peloponnesus
Peloponnese
The Peloponnese, Peloponnesos or Peloponnesus , is a large peninsula , located in a region of southern Greece, forming the part of the country south of the Gulf of Corinth...
, specifically the states of Lacedaemon
Laconia
Laconia , also known as Lacedaemonia, is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Peloponnese. It is situated in the southeastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. Its administrative capital is Sparti...
, Corinth
Ancient Corinth
Corinth, or Korinth was a city-state on the Isthmus of Corinth, the narrow stretch of land that joins the Peloponnesus to the mainland of Greece, roughly halfway between Athens and Sparta. The modern town of Corinth is located approximately northeast of the ancient ruins...
, Sicyon
Sicyon
Sikyon was an ancient Greek city situated in the northern Peloponnesus between Corinth and Achaea on the territory of the present-day prefecture of Corinthia...
, Epidaurus
Epidaurus
Epidaurus was a small city in ancient Greece, at the Saronic Gulf. Two modern towns bear the name Epidavros : Palaia Epidavros and Nea Epidavros. Since 2010 they belong to the new municipality of Epidavros, part of the peripheral unit of Argolis...
and Troezen
Troezen
Troezen is a small town and a former municipality in the northeastern Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Troizinia, of which it is a municipal unit....
. Hermione was not Dorian but had joined the Dorians. Overseas were the islands of Rhodes
Rhodes
Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...
, Cos
Kos
Kos or Cos is a Greek island in the south Sporades group of the Dodecanese, next to the Gulf of Gökova/Cos. It measures by , and is from the coast of Bodrum, Turkey and the ancient region of Caria. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within the Kos peripheral unit, which is...
, Nisyrus
Nisyros
Nisyros is a volcanic Greek island and municipality located in the Aegean Sea. It is part of the Dodecanese group of islands, situated between the islands of Kos and Tilos. Its shape is approximately round, with a diameter of about , and an area of . Several other islets are found in the direct...
and the Anatolia
Anatolia
Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...
n cities of Cnidus
Knidos
Knidos or Cnidus is an ancient settlement located in Turkey. It was an ancient Greek city of Caria, part of the Dorian Hexapolis. It was situated on the Datça peninsula, which forms the southern side of the Sinus Ceramicus, now known as Gulf of Gökova. By the fourth century BC, Knidos was located...
, Halicarnassus
Halicarnassus
Halicarnassus was an ancient Greek city at the site of modern Bodrum in Turkey. It was located in southwest Caria on a picturesque, advantageous site on the Ceramic Gulf. The city was famous for the tomb of Mausolus, the origin of the word mausoleum, built between 353 BC and 350 BC, and...
, Phaselis
Phaselis
Phaselis is an ancient Lycian city in the province of Antalya in Turkey. It is located between the Bey Mountains and the forests of Olympos National Park, 16 km west of the touristic town of Kemer and on the 57th kilometre of the Antalya–Kumluca highway...
and Calydna. Dorians also colonised Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
including founding of such towns as Lato
Lato
Lato was an ancient city of Crete, the ruins of which are located approximately 3 km from the small town of Kritsa. The Dorian city-state was built in a defensible position overlooking Mirabello Bay between two peaks, both of which became acropolises to the city...
, Dreros
Dreros
Dreros , also Driros, near Neapolis in the district of Lassithi, Crete, is a post-Minoan archaeological site, 16 km. northwest of Aghios Nikolaos...
and Olous
Olous
Olous or Olus is an ancient, sunken city situated at the present day town of Elounda, Crete, Greece.-History:After continuing boundary disputes with the hillfort of Lato, the citizens of Olous eventually entered into a treaty with those of Lato...
. The Cynurians were originally Ionians
Ionians
The Ionians were one of the four major tribes into which the Classical Greeks considered the population of Hellenes to have been divided...
but had become Dorian under the influence of their Argive
Argos
Argos is a city and a former municipality in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Argos-Mykines, of which it is a municipal unit. It is 11 kilometres from Nafplion, which was its historic harbour...
masters.
Thucydides
ThucydidesThucydides
Thucydides was a Greek historian and author from Alimos. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 BC...
professes little of Greece before the Trojan War
Trojan War
In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad...
except to say that it was full of barbarians and that there was no distinction between barbarians and Greeks. The Hellenes came from Phthiotis
Phthiotis
Phthiotis is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the administrative region of Central Greece. The capital is the city of Lamia. It is bordered by the Malian Gulf to the east, Boeotia in the south, Phocis in the south, Aetolia-Acarnania in the southwest, Evrytania in the west,...
. The whole country indulged in and suffered from piracy and was not settled. After the Trojan War, "Hellas was still engaged in removing and settling."
Some 60 years after the Trojan War the Boeotia
Boeotia
Boeotia, also spelled Beotia and Bœotia , is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Central Greece. It was also a region of ancient Greece. Its capital is Livadeia, the second largest city being Thebes.-Geography:...
ns were driven out of Arne
Arne
In Greek mythology, Arne or Melanippe was a daughter of Aeolus and Melanippe , daughter of Chiron. She was born as a foal as her mother had been transformed into a horse as a disguise, but was returned to the human form and renamed Arne...
by the Thessalians
Thessaly
Thessaly is a traditional geographical region and an administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thessaly was known as Aeolia, and appears thus in Homer's Odyssey....
into Boeotia and 20 years later "the Dorians and the Heraclids became masters of the Peloponnese." So the lines were drawn between the Dorians and the Aeolians
Aeolians
The Aeolians were one of the four major ancient Greek tribes comprising Ancient Greeks. Their name derives from Aeolus, the mythical ancestor of the Aeolic branch and son of Hellen, the mythical patriarch of the Greek nation...
(here Boeotians) with the Ionians
Ionians
The Ionians were one of the four major tribes into which the Classical Greeks considered the population of Hellenes to have been divided...
(former Peloponnesians).
Other than these few brief observations Thucydides names but few Dorians. He does make it clear that some Dorian states aligned or were forced to align with the Athenians while some Ionians went with the Lacedaemonians and that the motives for alignment were not always ethnic but were diverse. Among the Dorians was Lacedaemon, Corcyra, Corinth
Ancient Corinth
Corinth, or Korinth was a city-state on the Isthmus of Corinth, the narrow stretch of land that joins the Peloponnesus to the mainland of Greece, roughly halfway between Athens and Sparta. The modern town of Corinth is located approximately northeast of the ancient ruins...
and Epidamnus, Leucadia
Lefkada
Lefkada, or Leucas or Leucadia , is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea on the west coast of Greece, connected to the mainland by a long causeway and floating bridge. The principal town of the island and seat of the municipality is Lefkada . It is situated on the northern part of the island,...
, Ambracia
Ambracia
Ambracia, occasionally Ampracia , was an ancient Corinthian colony, situated about 7 miles from the Ambracian Gulf in Greece, on a bend of the navigable river Arachthos , in the midst of a fertile wooded plain.-History:...
, Potidaea
Potidaea
Potidaea was a colony founded by the Corinthians around 600 BC in the narrowest point of the peninsula of Pallene, the westernmost of three peninsulas at the southern end of Chalcidice in northern Greece....
, Rhodes
Rhodes
Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...
, Cythera, Argos
Argos
Argos is a city and a former municipality in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Argos-Mykines, of which it is a municipal unit. It is 11 kilometres from Nafplion, which was its historic harbour...
, Carystus
Carystus
Carystus ; was an ancient city-state on Euboea. In the Iliad it is controlled by the Abantes. By the time of Thucydides it was inhabited by Dryopians.- Persian War :...
, Syracuse, Gela
Gela
Gela is a town and comune in the province of Caltanissetta in the south of Sicily, Italy. The city is at about 84 kilometers distance from the city of Caltanissetta, on the Mediterranean Sea. The city has a larger population than the provincial capital, and ranks second in land area.Gela is an...
, Acragas
Agrigento
Agrigento , is a city on the southern coast of Sicily, Italy, and capital of the province of Agrigento. It is renowned as the site of the ancient Greek city of Akragas , one of the leading cities of Magna Graecia during the golden...
(later Agrigentum), Acrae, Casmenae.
He does explain with considerable dismay what happened to incite ethnic war after the unity between the Greek states during the Battle of Thermopylae
Battle of Thermopylae
The Battle of Thermopylae was fought between an alliance of Greek city-states, led by King Leonidas of Sparta, and the Persian Empire of Xerxes I over the course of three days, during the second Persian invasion of Greece. It took place simultaneously with the naval battle at Artemisium, in August...
. The Congress of Corinth, formed prior to it, "split into two sections." Athens headed one and Lacedaemon the other:
"For a short time the league held together, till the Lacedaemonians and Athenians quarreled, and made war upon each other with their allies, a duel into which all the Hellenes sooner or later were drawn."
He adds: "the real cause I consider to be ... the growth of the power of Athens and the alarm which this inspired in Lacedaemon...."
Pausanias
The Description of Greece by PausaniasPausanias (geographer)
Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...
relates that the Achaeans
Achaeans (tribe)
The Achaeans were one of the four major tribes into which the people of Classical Greece divided themselves. According to the foundation myth formalized by Hesiod, their name comes from Achaeus, the mythical founder of the Achaean tribe, who was supposedly one of the sons of Xuthus, and brother of...
of the Peloponnesus were driven from their lands by Dorians coming from Oeta
Mount Oeta
Mount Oeta is a mountain to the south of Central Greece, in Greece, forming a boundary between the valleys of the Spercheius and the Boeotian Cephissus. It is an offshoot of the Pindus range, high. In its eastern portion, called Callidromus, it comes close to the sea, leaving only a narrow...
, a mountainous region bordering on Thessaly
Thessaly
Thessaly is a traditional geographical region and an administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thessaly was known as Aeolia, and appears thus in Homer's Odyssey....
. They were led by Hyllus
Hyllus
In Greek mythology, Hyllus was the son of Heracles and Deianira, husband of Iole, nursed by Abia....
, a son of Heracles
Heracles
Heracles ,born Alcaeus or Alcides , was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus...
, but were defeated by the Achaeans. Under other leadership they managed to be victorious over the Achaeans and remain in the Peloponnesus, a mythic theme called "the return of the Heracleidae
Heracleidae
In Greek mythology, the Heracleidae or Heraclids were the numerous descendants of Heracles , especially applied in a narrower sense to the descendants of Hyllus, the eldest of his four sons by Deianira Other Heracleidae included Macaria, Lamos, Manto, Bianor, Tlepolemus, and Telephus...
." They had built ships at Naupactus
Naupactus
Naupactus or Nafpaktos , is a town and a former municipality in Aetolia-Acarnania, West Greece, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Nafpaktia, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit...
in which to cross the Gulf of Corinth
Gulf of Corinth
The Gulf of Corinth or the Corinthian Gulf is a deep inlet of the Ionian Sea separating the Peloponnese from western mainland Greece...
. This invasion is viewed by the tradition of Pausanias as a return of the Dorians to the Peloponnesus, apparently meaning a return of families ruling in Aetolia
Aetolia
Aetolia is a mountainous region of Greece on the north coast of the Gulf of Corinth, forming the eastern part of the modern prefecture of Aetolia-Acarnania.-Geography:...
and northern Greece to a land in which they had once had a share. The return is described in detail: there were "disturbances" throughout the Peloponnesus except in Arcadia
Arcadia
Arcadia is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the administrative region of Peloponnese. It is situated in the central and eastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. It takes its name from the mythological character Arcas. In Greek mythology, it was the home of the god Pan...
, and new Dorian settlers. Pausanias goes on to describe the conquest and resettlement of Laconia
Laconia
Laconia , also known as Lacedaemonia, is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Peloponnese. It is situated in the southeastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. Its administrative capital is Sparti...
, Messenia
Messenia
Messenia is a regional unit in the southwestern part of the Peloponnese region, one of 13 regions into which Greece has been divided by the Kallikratis plan, implemented 1 January 2011...
, Argos
Argos
Argos is a city and a former municipality in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Argos-Mykines, of which it is a municipal unit. It is 11 kilometres from Nafplion, which was its historic harbour...
and elsewhere, and the emigration from there to Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
and the coast of Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
.
Diodorus Siculus
Diodorus is a rich source of traditional information concerning the mythology and history of the Dorians, especially the Library of History. He does not make any such distinction but the fantastic nature of the earliest material marks it as mythical or legendary. The myths do attempt to justify some Dorian operations, suggesting that they were in part political.Heracles
Heracles
Heracles ,born Alcaeus or Alcides , was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus...
was a Perseid, a member of the ruling family of Greece. His mother Alcmene
Alcmene
In Greek mythology, Alcmene or Alcmena was the mother of Heracles.-Background:Alcmene was born to Electryon, the son of Perseus and Andromeda, and king of Tiryns and Mycenae or Medea in Argolis. Her mother was Anaxo, daughter of Alcaeus and Astydamia, daughter of Pelops and Hippodameia...
had both Perseids and Pelopids
Pelops
In Greek mythology, Pelops , was king of Pisa in the Peloponnesus. He was the founder of the House of Atreus through his son of that name....
in her ancestry. A princess of the realm, she received Zeus thinking he was Amphitryon
Amphitryon
Amphitryon , in Greek mythology, was a son of Alcaeus, king of Tiryns in Argolis.Amphitryon was a Theban general, who was originally from Tiryns in the eastern part of the Peloponnese. He was friends with Panopeus....
. Zeus intended his son to rule Greece but according to the rules of succession Eurystheus
Eurystheus
In Greek mythology, Eurystheus was king of Tiryns, one of three Mycenaean strongholds in the Argolid, although other authors including Homer and Euripides cast him as ruler of Argos: Sthenelus was his father and the "victorious horsewoman" Nicippe his mother, and he was a grandson of the hero...
, born slightly earlier, preempted the right. Attempts to kill Hercules as a child failed. On adulthood he was forced into the service of Eurystheus, who commanded him to perform 12 labors.
Heracles became a warrior without a home, wandering from place to place assisting the local rulers with various problems. He took a retinue of Arcadians with him acquiring also over time a family of grown sons, the Heraclidae. He continued this mode of life even after completing the 12 labors. The legend has it that he became involved with Achaean Sparta when the family of king Tyndareus
Tyndareus
In Greek mythology, Tyndareus or Tyndareos was a Spartan king, son of Oebalus and Gorgophone , husband of Leda and father of Helen, Castor and Polydeuces, Clytemnestra, Timandra, Phoebe and Philonoe.Tyndareus had a brother named Hippocoon , who seized power and exiled Tyndareus...
was unseated and driven into exile by Hippocoön and his family, who in the process happened to kill the son of a friend of Heracles. The latter and his retinue assaulted Sparta, taking it back from Hippocoön. He recalled Tyndareus, set him up as a guardian regent, and instructed him to turn the kingdom over to any descendants of his that should claim it. Heracles went on with the way of life to which he had become accustomed, which was by today's standards that of a mercenary, as he was being paid for his assistance. Subsequently he founded a colony in Aetolia
Aetolia
Aetolia is a mountainous region of Greece on the north coast of the Gulf of Corinth, forming the eastern part of the modern prefecture of Aetolia-Acarnania.-Geography:...
, then in Trachis
Trachis
Trachis was a region in ancient Greece. Situated south of the river Spercheios, it was populated by the Malians.Its main town was also called Trachis until 426 BC, when it became Heraclea Trachinia. It is located to the west of Thermopylae. Trachis is located just west of the western-most tip of...
.
After displacing the Dryopes, he went to the assistance of the Dorians, who lived in a land called Hestiaeotis under king Aegimius
Aegimius
Aegimius was the Greek mythological ancestor of the Dorians, who is described as their king and lawgiver at the time when they were yet inhabiting the northern parts of Thessaly. He asked Heracles for help in a war against the Lapiths and, in gratitude, offered him one-third of his kingdom...
and were campaigning against the numerically superior Lapithae. The Dorians promised him 1/3 of Doris (which they did not yet possess). He asked Aegimius to keep his share of the land "in trust" until it should be claimed by a descendant. He went on to further adventures but was poisoned by his jealous wife, Deianeira. He immolated himself in full armor dressed for combat and "passed from among men into the company of the gods."
Strabo
Strabo, who depends of course on the books available to him, goes on to elaborate:Beside this sole reference to Dorians in Crete, the mention of the Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...
on the Heraclid
Heracleidae
In Greek mythology, the Heracleidae or Heraclids were the numerous descendants of Heracles , especially applied in a narrower sense to the descendants of Hyllus, the eldest of his four sons by Deianira Other Heracleidae included Macaria, Lamos, Manto, Bianor, Tlepolemus, and Telephus...
Tlepolemus
Tlepolemus
For others of this name see Tlepolemus In Greek mythology, Tlepolemus is the son of Heracles by Astyocheia, daughter of the King of Ephyra. Either that or he was the son of Melite and the second of the two sons of Hercules who goes by the name of Hyllus...
, a warrior on the side of Achaeans and colonist of three important Dorian cities in Rhodes
Rhodes
Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...
has been also regarded as a later interpolation
See also
Language- Ancient Greek dialects
- Doric GreekDoric GreekDoric or Dorian was a dialect of ancient Greek. Its variants were spoken in the southern and eastern Peloponnese, Crete, Rhodes, some islands in the southern Aegean Sea, some cities on the coasts of Asia Minor, Southern Italy, Sicily, Epirus and Macedon. Together with Northwest Greek, it forms the...
Mythology
- DorusDorus-People:*Dorus de Vries, Dutch footballer*Dorus Rijkers, Dutch lifeboat captain*Stage name of Dutch comedian Tom Manders-Greek mythology:*Dorus, son of Hellen and founder of the Dorian nation*Dorus, son of Apollo and Phthia, and the father of Xanthippe...
, the eponymous founderEponymAn eponym is the name of a person or thing, whether real or fictitious, after which a particular place, tribe, era, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named... - DymasDymasIn Greek mythology, Dymas is the name attributed to at least four individuals.- Dymas :The first Dymas was a Phrygian king and father of Hecuba , wife to King Priam of Troy...
- HeracleidaeHeracleidaeIn Greek mythology, the Heracleidae or Heraclids were the numerous descendants of Heracles , especially applied in a narrower sense to the descendants of Hyllus, the eldest of his four sons by Deianira Other Heracleidae included Macaria, Lamos, Manto, Bianor, Tlepolemus, and Telephus...
- Pamphilus (mythology)Pamphilus (mythology)Pamphilus , a son of Aegimius and brother of Dymas, was king of the Dorians at the foot of mount Pindus, and along with the Heracleidae invaded Peloponnesus. After him, a tribe of the Sicyonians was called Pamphyli....
History
- Greek Dark AgesGreek Dark AgesThe Greek Dark Age or Ages also known as Geometric or Homeric Age are terms which have regularly been used to refer to the period of Greek history from the presumed Dorian invasion and end of the Mycenaean Palatial civilization around 1200 BC, to the first signs of the Greek city-states in the 9th...
- Sea PeoplesSea PeoplesThe Sea Peoples were a confederacy of seafaring raiders of the second millennium BC who sailed into the eastern Mediterranean, caused political unrest, and attempted to enter or control Egyptian territory during the late 19th dynasty and especially during year 8 of Ramesses III of the 20th Dynasty...
List of Dorian states
- AcragasAcragasAcragas may refer to:* Agrigento, aka Acragas, an ancient Greek city on the site of modern Agrigento, Sicily* Acragas, son of Zeus and the Oceanid Asterope in Greek mythology...
- AmbraciaAmbraciaAmbracia, occasionally Ampracia , was an ancient Corinthian colony, situated about 7 miles from the Ambracian Gulf in Greece, on a bend of the navigable river Arachthos , in the midst of a fertile wooded plain.-History:...
- ArgosArgosArgos is a city and a former municipality in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Argos-Mykines, of which it is a municipal unit. It is 11 kilometres from Nafplion, which was its historic harbour...
- Calydna
- Cameiros
- Cnidus
- CorinthCorinthCorinth is a city and former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Corinth, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit...
- Corcyra
- CosCos-Maths, science and technology:* Cosine, a trigonometric function* COS cells, a cell line used by biologists* Carbonyl sulfide, a chemical compound* Class of service , a 3 bit field within a layer two Ethernet frame header defined by IEEE 802.1p...
- Cythera
- Doris (Asia Minor)Doris (Asia Minor)Doris was a small region of ancient Asia Minor inhabited by Dorians; the territory is now in modern-day Turkey. Pliny says, Caria mediae Doridi circumfunditur ad mare utroque latere ambiens, by which he means that Doris is surrounded by Caria on all sides, except where it is bordered by the sea....
- Doris (Greece)Doris (Greece)Doris , is a small mountainous district in ancient Greece, bounded by Aetolia, southern Thessaly, the Ozolian Locrians, and Phocis; the original homeland of the Dorian Greeks...
- EpidaurusEpidaurusEpidaurus was a small city in ancient Greece, at the Saronic Gulf. Two modern towns bear the name Epidavros : Palaia Epidavros and Nea Epidavros. Since 2010 they belong to the new municipality of Epidavros, part of the peripheral unit of Argolis...
- GelaGelaGela is a town and comune in the province of Caltanissetta in the south of Sicily, Italy. The city is at about 84 kilometers distance from the city of Caltanissetta, on the Mediterranean Sea. The city has a larger population than the provincial capital, and ranks second in land area.Gela is an...
- HalicarnassusHalicarnassusHalicarnassus was an ancient Greek city at the site of modern Bodrum in Turkey. It was located in southwest Caria on a picturesque, advantageous site on the Ceramic Gulf. The city was famous for the tomb of Mausolus, the origin of the word mausoleum, built between 353 BC and 350 BC, and...
- Histiaea
- Ialyssos
- LeucadiaLeucadiaLeucadia may refer to:* Lefkada or Leucadia, a Greek island in the Ionian Sea* Leucadia National, a New York City-based holding company* Leucadia State Beach, California* Leucadia, a district in the city of Encinitas, California...
- LindosLindosLindos is an archaeological site, a town and a former municipality on the island of Rhodes, in the Dodecanese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Rhodes, of which it is a municipal unit. It lies on the east coast of the island...
- MacedonMacedonMacedonia or Macedon was an ancient kingdom, centered in the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, bordered by Epirus to the west, Paeonia to the north, the region of Thrace to the east and Thessaly to the south....
- MegaraMegaraMegara is an ancient city in Attica, Greece. It lies in the northern section of the Isthmus of Corinth opposite the island of Salamis, which belonged to Megara in archaic times, before being taken by Athens. Megara was one of the four districts of Attica, embodied in the four mythic sons of King...
- NisyrosNisyrosNisyros is a volcanic Greek island and municipality located in the Aegean Sea. It is part of the Dodecanese group of islands, situated between the islands of Kos and Tilos. Its shape is approximately round, with a diameter of about , and an area of . Several other islets are found in the direct...
- PhaselisPhaselisPhaselis is an ancient Lycian city in the province of Antalya in Turkey. It is located between the Bey Mountains and the forests of Olympos National Park, 16 km west of the touristic town of Kemer and on the 57th kilometre of the Antalya–Kumluca highway...
- PhthiaPhthiaPhthia , Phthíē ) in ancient Greece was the southernmost region of ancient Thessaly, on both sides of Othrys Mountain. It was the homeland of the Myrmidones tribe, who took part in the Trojan War under Achilles....
- PotidaeaPotidaeaPotidaea was a colony founded by the Corinthians around 600 BC in the narrowest point of the peninsula of Pallene, the westernmost of three peninsulas at the southern end of Chalcidice in northern Greece....
- RhodesRhodesRhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...
- SpartaSpartaSparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...
- SicyonSicyonSikyon was an ancient Greek city situated in the northern Peloponnesus between Corinth and Achaea on the territory of the present-day prefecture of Corinthia...
- Syracuse
- TroezenTroezenTroezen is a small town and a former municipality in the northeastern Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Troizinia, of which it is a municipal unit....