Editing Dorians (section)

==Ancient traditions==
In [[Greek historiography]], the Dorians are mentioned by many authors. The chief classical authors to relate their origins are [[Herodotus]], [[Thucydides]] and [[Pausanias (geographer)|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]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Agesilaus*.html|title=Plutarch • Life of Agesilaus}}</ref>

===Homer===
The ''[[Odyssey]]'' has one reference to the Dorians:<ref>Book 19, Line 177.</ref><blockquote>There is a land called [[Crete]], 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 (Homer)|Achaeans]], there great-hearted [[Eteocretans|native Cretans]], there [[Kydonia|Cydonians]], and Dorians of waving plumes, and goodly [[Pelasgians]].</blockquote>
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.<ref>R. F. Willetts, "The Coming of the Dorians" in ''Ancient Crete: From Early Times Until the Roman Occupation''
(London: Routledge, 1965/2013), 16-35. {{ISBN|1134528310}}, 9781134528318</ref> Also, the Messenian town of [[Dorium]] is mentioned in the [[Catalogue of Ships]]. If its name comes from Dorians, it would imply there were settlements of the latter in Messenia during that time as well.

===Tyrtaeus===
[[Tyrtaeus]], a Spartan poet, became advisor of the Lacedaemonians in their mid-7th-century war to suppress a rebellion of the [[Messenia (ancient region)|Messenians]]. 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]].<ref>{{cite book | editor-first=J. M. | editor-last=Edmonds | title=Elegy and Iambus | volume=I | chapter=The Elegiac Poems of Tyrtaeus | url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2008.01.0479%3Avolume%3D1%3Atext%3D2%3Asection%3D2 | publisher=Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University}}</ref>

Only a few fragments of Tyrtaeus' five books of martial verse survive. His is the earliest mention of the three Dorian tribes: [[Pamphylus (mythology)|Pamphyli]], Hylleis, [[Dymas|Dymanes]]. He also says: 

{{quote|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:

{{quote|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===
[[File:Helmed Hoplite Sparta.JPG|thumb|right|Fifth century BC hoplite, or "heavy-armed soldier", possibly the Spartan king Leonidas, a Dorian, who died holding the pass at the [[Battle of Thermopylae]].]]

[[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.

[[File:Peloponnese modis.jpg|thumb|right|[[Peloponnesus]]. [[Sparta]] was in the valley of the lowermost bay.]]
Herodotus gives a general account of the events termed "the Dorian Invasion", presenting them as transfers of population. Their original home was in [[Thessaly]], central Greece.<ref>''Histories'', 1.57.1.</ref> He goes on to expand in mythological terms, giving some of the geographic details of the myth:<ref>Herodotus, ''Histories'', [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2707/2707-h/2707-h.htm#link2H_4_0003 1.56.2-1.58.1]</ref><blockquote>1.56.2-3 And inquiring he found that the Lacedemonians and the Athenians had the pre-eminence, the first of the Dorian and the others of the Ionian race. For these were the most eminent races in ancient time, the second being a Pelasgian and the first a Hellenic race: and the one never migrated from its place in any direction, while the other was very exceedingly given to wanderings; for in the reign of Deucalion this race dwelt in Pthiotis, and in the time of Doros the son of Hellen in the land lying below Ossa and Olympos, which is called Histiaiotis; and when it was driven from Histiaiotis by the sons of Cadmos, it dwelt in Pindos and was called Makednian; and thence it moved afterwards to Dryopis, and from Dryopis it came finally to Peloponnesus, and began to be called Dorian.

1.57.1-3 What language however the Pelasgians used to speak I am not able with certainty to say. But if one must pronounce judging by those that still remain of the Pelasgians who dwelt in the city of Creston above the Tyrsenians, and who were once neighbours of the race now called Dorian, dwelling then in the land which is now called Thessaliotis, and also by those that remain of the Pelasgians who settled at Plakia and Skylake in the region of the Hellespont, who before that had been settlers with the Athenians, and of the natives of the various other towns which are really Pelasgian, though they have lost the name,—if one must pronounce judging by these, the Pelasgians used to speak a Barbarian language. If therefore all the Pelasgian race was such as these, then the Attic race, being Pelasgian, at the same time when it changed and became Hellenic, unlearnt also its language. For the people of Creston do not speak the same language with any of those who dwell about them, nor yet do the people of Phakia, but they speak the same language one as the other: and by this it is proved that they still keep unchanged the form of language which they brought with them when they migrated to these places.

1.58 As for the Hellenic race, it has used ever the same language, as I clearly perceive, since it first took its rise; but since the time when it parted off feeble at first from the Pelasgian race, setting forth from a small beginning it has increased to that great number of races which we see, and chiefly because many Barbarian races have been added to it besides. Moreover it is true, as I think, of the Pelasgian race also, that so far as it remained Barbarian it never made any great increase.  
</blockquote>
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 (mythology)|Ion]] and became identified as "Ionians".<ref>''Histories'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hdt.+7.94&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0126 7.94], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hdt.+8.44&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0126 8.44].</ref>

Herodotus' list of Dorian states is as follows. From northeastern Greece were [[Phthia]], [[Oreus|Histiaea]] and [[Macedon]]. In central Greece were [[Doris (Greece)|Doris]] (the former Dryopia) and in the south [[Peloponnese|Peloponnesus]], specifically the states of [[Laconia|Lacedaemon]], [[Ancient Corinth|Corinth]], [[Sicyon]], [[Epidaurus]] and [[Troezen]]. Hermione was not Dorian but had joined the Dorians.<ref>''Histories'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hdt.+8.43&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0126 8.43].</ref> Overseas were the islands of [[Rhodes]], [[Kos|Cos]], [[Nisyros|Nisyrus]] and the [[Anatolia]]n cities of [[Knidos|Cnidus]], [[Halicarnassus]], [[Phaselis]] and Calydna.<ref>''Histories'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hdt.+2.178&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0126 2.178], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hdt.+7.99&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0126 7.99].</ref> Dorians also colonised [[Crete]] including founding of such towns as [[Lato]], [[Dreros]] and [[Olous]].<ref>{{cite web | url=http://themodernantiquarian.com/site/10847/lato.html#fieldnotes | first=C. Michael | last=Hogan | title=Lato Hillfort | work=The Modern Antiquarian | date=10 January 2008 | publisher=Julian Cope}}</ref> The [[Cynuria]]ns were originally [[Ionians]] but had become Dorian under the influence of their [[Argos, Peloponnese|Argive]] masters.<ref>''Histories'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hdt.+8.73&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0126 8.73]</ref>

===Thucydides===
[[Thucydides]] 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]].<ref>''Peloponnesian War'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Thuc.+1.3&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0200 1.3].</ref> 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."<ref name=ThucI-12>''Peloponnesian War'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Thuc.+1.12&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0200 1.12].</ref>

Some 60 years after the Trojan War the [[Boeotia]]ns were driven out of [[Tell Aran|Arne]] by the [[Thessaly|Thessalians]] into Boeotia and 20 years later "the Dorians and the Heraclids became masters of the Peloponnese."<ref name=ThucI-12/> 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]],<ref>''Peloponnesian War'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Thuc.+2.54&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0200 2.54].</ref> [[Corcyra]], [[Ancient Corinth|Corinth]] and [[Epidamnus]],<ref>''Peloponnesian War'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Thuc.+1.24&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0200 1.24].</ref> [[Lefkada|Leucadia]], [[Ambracia]],<ref>''Peloponnesian War'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Thuc.+7.58&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0200 7.58].</ref> [[Potidaea]],<ref>''Peloponnesian War'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Thuc.+1.124&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0200 1.124].</ref> [[Rhodes]], [[Cythera (island)|Cythera]], [[Argos, Peloponnese|Argos]],<ref>''Peloponnesian War'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Thuc.+7.57&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0200 7.57].</ref> [[Syracuse, Sicily|Syracuse]], [[Gela]], [[Agrigento|Acragas]] (later Agrigentum), [[Palazzolo Acreide|Acrae]], Casmenae.<ref>''Peloponnesian War'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Thuc.+6.4&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0200 6.4].</ref>

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:<ref>''Peloponnesian War'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Thuc.+1.18&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0200 1.18].</ref><blockquote>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.</blockquote>
He adds: "the real cause I consider to be ... the growth of the power of Athens and the alarm which this inspired in Lacedaemon...."

===Plato===
In the [[Plato]]nic work ''[[Laws (dialogue)|Laws]]'' is mentioned that the [[Achaeans (tribe)|Achaeans]] who fought in the [[Trojan War]], on their return from Troy were driven out from their homes and cities by the young residents, so they migrated under a leader named Dorieus and hence they were renamed "Dorians".<ref>Plato, ''Laws'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0166%3Abook%3D3%3Apage%3D682 3.682]</ref>
<blockquote>Now during this period of ten years, while the siege lasted, the affairs of each of the besiegers at home suffered much owing to the seditious conduct of the young men. For when the soldiers returned to their own cities and homes, these young people did not receive them fittingly and justly, but in such a way that there ensued a vast number of cases of death, slaughter, and exile. So they, being again driven out, migrated by sea; and because Dorieus was the man who then banded together the exiles, they got the new name of "Dorians", instead of "Achaeans". But as to all the events that follow this, you Lacedaemonians relate them all fully in your traditions.</blockquote>

===Pausanias===
The ''[[Description of Greece]]'' by [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] relates that the Achaeans were driven from their lands by Dorians coming from [[Mount Oeta|Oeta]], a mountainous region bordering on [[Thessaly]].<ref>''Description of Greece'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Paus%2e+5%2e1%2e2 5.1.2].</ref> They were led by [[Hyllus]], a son of [[Heracles]],<ref>''Description of Greece'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Paus%2e+4%2e30%2e1 4.30.1]; [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Paus%2e+8%2e5%2e1 8.5.1]</ref> 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]]."<ref>''Description of Greece'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Paus%2e+3%2e1%2e6 3.1.6], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Paus%2e+5%2e3%2e5 5.3.5ff], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Paus%2e+7%2e1%2e6 7.1.6], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Paus%2e+7%2e3%2e9 7.3.9], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Paus%2e+8%2e5%2e6 8.5.6]</ref> They had built ships at [[Naupactus]] in which to cross the [[Gulf of Corinth]].<ref>''Description of Greece'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Paus.+10.38.10&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160 10.38.10].</ref> 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 (ancient region)|Arcadia]], and new Dorian settlers.<ref>''Description of Greece'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Paus.+2.13.1&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160 2.13.1].</ref> Pausanias goes on to describe the conquest and resettlement of [[Laconia]], [[Messenia]], [[Argos, Peloponnese|Argos]] and elsewhere, and the emigration from there to [[Crete]] and the coast of [[Asia Minor]].

===Diodorus Siculus===
[[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.{{efn|
Diodorus Siculus, ''Library of History'' volumes I–III. Greek historian of Agyrium in Sicily, {{circa|80–20}}&nbsp;BC, wrote forty books of world history, called Library of History, in three parts: mythical history of peoples, non-Greek and Greek, to the Trojan War; history to Alexander's death (323&nbsp;BC); history to 54&nbsp;BC. He was an uncritical compiler, but used good sources and reproduced them faithfully. He is valuable for details unrecorded elsewhere, and as evidence for works now lost, especially writings of Ephorus, Apollodorus, Agatharchides, Philistus, and Timaeus.
}}

[[Diodorus Siculus|Diodorus]] quoting from an earlier historian [[Hecataeus of Abdera]] details that during the [[The Exodus|Exodus]] many [[Israelites]] went into the islands of Greece and other places.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.attalus.org/translate/diodorus40.html|title=Diodorus: Book 40 - translation |website=www.attalus.org |access-date=2019-07-09}}</ref>
<blockquote>
All the foreigners were forthwith expelled, and the most valiant and noble among them, under some notable leaders, were brought to Greece and other places, as some relate; the most famous of their leaders were [[Danaus]] and [[Cadmus]]. But the majority of the people descended into a country not far from Egypt, which is now called [[Judea (Roman province)|Judaea]] and at that time was altogether uninhabited.
</blockquote>
[[Heracles]] was a [[Perseid dynasty|Perseid]], a member of the ruling family of Greece. His mother [[Alcmene]] had both Perseids and [[Pelops|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 Heracles as a child failed. On adulthood he was forced into the service of Eurystheus, who commanded him to perform [[Labours of Hercules|12 labors]].<ref>
{{cite book
 |author=[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)#Pseudo-Apollodorus|Pseudo-Apollodorus]]
 |title=[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Bibliotheca]]
 |trans-title=[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|The Library]]
 |at=[https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/4B*.html 4.9-10]
 |via=Penelope, [[University of Chicago|U.Chicago]]
}}
</ref>

Heracles became a warrior without a home, wandering from place to place assisting the local rulers with various problems. He took a retinue of [[Regions of ancient Greece#Arcadia|Arcadian]]s 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]].{{citation needed|date=November 2019}}

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 {{frac|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."<ref>
{{cite book
 |author=[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)#Pseudo-Apollodorus|Pseudo-Apollodorus]]
 |title=[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Bibliotheca]]
 |trans-title=[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|The Library]]
 |at=[https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/4B*.html 4.33-38]
 |via=Penelope, [[University of Chicago|U.Chicago]]
}}
</ref>

===Strabo===
[[Strabo]],<ref>Strabo. ''[[Geographica]]''. Book 10, Section 6.</ref> who depends on the books available to him, goes on to elaborate:
{{Blockquote|Of these peoples, according to [[Staphylus of Naucratis|Staphylus]], the Dorians occupy the part toward the east, the Cydonians the western part, the Eteo-Cretans the southern; and to these last belongs the town [[Praisos]], where is the temple of the Dictaean Zeus; whereas the other peoples, since they were more powerful, dwelt in the plains. Now it is reasonable to suppose that the Eteo-Cretans and the Cydonians were autochthonous, and that the others were foreigners ...<ref>The Jones translation in the [[Loeb Classical Library|Loeb]], which has Greek and English on opposing pages.</ref>}}
Beside this sole reference to Dorians in Crete, the mention of the ''[[Iliad]]'' of the [[Heracleidae|Heraclid]] [[Tlepolemus]], a warrior on the side of [[Achaeans (Homer)|Achaeans]] and colonist of three important Dorian cities in [[Rhodes]] has been also regarded as a later interpolation.<ref>{{cite book|author=Richard Claverhous Jebb|title=Homer: An Introduction to the Iliad and the Odyssey|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oW7Zd5LdUo4C&pg=PA43|date=August 2008|publisher=BiblioBazaar|isbn=978-0-554-75061-3|page=43}}</ref>