Editing Dorians (section)

==Identity==
===Ethnonym===<!--a section at [[Dorus]] redirects here: if the heading is changed please update the link-->
[[File:Pindus Mountains 02 bgiu.jpg|thumb|left|Uplands of Greece - the [[Pindus Mountains]]]]

====Dorian of Bronze Age Pylos====
A man's name, ''Dōrieus'', occurs in the [[Linear B]] tablets at [[Pylos]], one of the regions later invaded and subjugated by the Dorians.<ref>{{cite book | first1= Michael | last1= Ventris | first2= John | last2= Chadwick | title= Documents in Mycenaean Greek | edition= 2nd | location= Cambridge | publisher= University Press | year= 1973 | page =541}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book | first= Pierre | last= Carlier | chapter = Qa-si-re-u et Qa-si-re-wi-ja |chapter-url= http://www2.ulg.ac.be/archgrec/IMG/aegeum/aegaeum12(pdf)/Carlier.pdf | year= 1995 |editor1=R. Laffineur |editor2=W.-D. Niemeier | title = Politeia: Society and State in the Aegean Bronze Age. Proceedings of the 5th International Conference, University of Heidelberg, Archäologisches Institut, 10–13 April 1994, II | location= Liège | publisher= Université de Liège | page= 359 | language= fr | access-date= 5 August 2011 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20111003195922/http://www2.ulg.ac.be/archgrec/IMG/aegeum/aegaeum12(pdf)/Carlier.pdf | archive-date= 3 October 2011 | url-status= dead }}</ref>

The nominative singular, ''Dōrieus'', remained the same in the classical period.<ref>{{harvnb | Liddell | Scott | 1940| loc= [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aalphabetic+letter%3D*d%3Aentry+group%3D134%3Aentry%3D*dwrieu%2Fs Δωρι-εύς]}}</ref> Many Linear B names of servants were formed from their home territory or the places where they came into Mycenaean ownership. [[Carl Darling Buck]] sees the ''-eus'' suffix as very productive. One of its uses was to convert a toponym to an anthroponym; for example, Megareus, "Megarian", from [[Megara]].<ref>
{{cite book
 | first= Carl Darling | last= Buck
 | title= Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin
 | location= Chicago
 | publisher= University of Chicago Press
 | year= 1933 | page= 316
}}
</ref>
A ''Dōrieus'' would be from Dōris, the only classical Greek state to serve as the basis for the name of the Dorians. The state was a small one in the mountains of west central Greece. However, classical [[Doris (Greece)|Doris]] may not have been the same as Mycenaean Doris.

====Dorians of upland Doris====
A number of credible etymologies by noted scholars have been proposed. [[Julius Pokorny]] derives Δωριεύς, ''Dōrieus'' from δωρίς, ''dōris'', "woodland" (which can also mean upland).<ref>{{cite encyclopedia | title=deru-, dōru-, dr(e)u-, drou-; drewə: drū- | first=Julius | last=Pokorny | encyclopedia=Indogermanisches Etymologisches Woerterbuch | pages=214–217 | publisher=[[Leiden University]] | url=http://www.indoeuropean.nl/cgi-bin/startq.cgi?flags=endnnnl&root=leiden&basename=\data\ie\pokorny | language=de | quote=Δωριεύς 'Dorer' (von Δωρίς 'Waldland') | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110809064309/http://www.indoeuropean.nl/cgi-bin/startq.cgi?flags=endnnnl&root=leiden&basename=%5Cdata%5Cie%5Cpokorny | archive-date=9 August 2011 | df=dmy-all }}</ref> The ''dōri-'' segment is from the o-grade (either ''ō'' or ''o'') of [[Proto-Indo-European language|Proto-Indo-European]] ''*deru-'', "tree", which also gives the Homeric Δούρειος Ἵππος (''Doureios Hippos'', "Wooden Horse").<ref>Πάπυρος - Λεξικό τῆς Ἑλληνικῆς Γλώσσας (Papyros - Dictionary of the Greek Language), 2007, v. 3. pp. 37–8</ref> This derivation has the advantage of naming the people after their wooded, mountainous country.

====Lancers====
A second popular derivation was given by the French linguist, Émile Boisacq, from the same root, but from Greek {{lang|grc|δόρυ}} (''doru'') 'spear-shaft' (which was made of wood); i.e., "the people of the spear" or "spearmen."<ref>{{cite encyclopedia | first=Émile | last=Boisacq | title=δὀρυ | encyclopedia=Dictionnaire Étymologique de la Langue Grecque: Étudiée dans ses Rapports avec les autres Langues Indo-Européennes | year=1916 | location=Paris | publisher=Librairie Klincksieck | language=fr}}</ref> In this case the country would be named after the people, as in Saxony from the Saxons. However, [[Robert S. P. Beekes|R. S. P. Beekes]] doubted the validity of this derivation and asserted that no good etymology exists.<ref>[[Robert S. P. Beekes|R. S. P. Beekes]], ''Etymological Dictionary of Greek'', Brill, 2009, p. 363.</ref>

====Chosen Greeks====
It sometimes happens that different derivations of an [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]] 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 δώσε (''dose'', "give [sing.]!") appearing in Greek as δῶρον (''dōron'', "gift").  This is the path taken by [[Jonathan M. Hall|Jonathan Hall]], relying on elements taken from the myth of the Return of the Herakleidai.<ref>{{cite book | first=Jonathan | last=Hall | title=Hellenicity: between ethnicity and culture | year=2002 | location=Chicago | publisher=University of Chicago | pages=85–89}}</ref>

Hall cites the tradition, based on a fragment of the poet, [[Tyrtaeus]], 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 descendants 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 conclusion, 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.{{citation needed|date=November 2019}}

A minor, and perhaps regrettably forgotten, episode in the history of scholarship was the attempt to emphasize the etymology of Doron with the meaning of 'hand'. This in turn was connected to an interpretation of the famous lambda on Spartan shields, which was to rather stand for a hand with outstanding thumb than the initial letter of Lacedaimon.<ref>{{cite book | first=Gilbert | last= Murray | title= The Rise of Greek Epic |orig-year=1907|year= 1934 | location=Oxford | publisher=OUP | pages=39 n.2}}</ref> Given the origin of the Spartan shield lambda legend, however, in a fragment by [[Eupolis]], an Athenian comic poet, there has been a recent attempt to suggest that a comic confusion between the letter and the hand image may yet have been intended.

===Social structure===
Dorian social structure was characterized by a communal social structure and separation of the sexes. The lives of free men centered around military campaigns. When not abroad, men stayed in all-male residences focusing on military training until the age of 30, regardless of marital status.

Dorian women had greater freedom and economic power than women of other Greek ethnicities. Unlike other Hellenic women, Dorian women were able to own property, manage their husbands' estate, and delegate many domestic tasks to slaves. [[Women in ancient Sparta]] possessed the greatest agency and economic power, likely due to the prolonged absences of men during military campaigns.<ref name=":0">[[Sarah B. Pomeroy|Pomeroy, Sarah B.]] (1994). ''Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity'' (2 ed.). London: Pimlico. pp. 35-42</ref> Dorian women wore the [[peplos]], which was once common to all Hellenes. This tunic was pinned at the shoulders by brooches and had slit skirts which bared the thighs and permitted more freedom of movement than the voluminous Ionian [[chiton (costume)]].<ref>5.87, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hdt%2e+5%2e87 online] at Perseus.</ref>

===Distinctions of language===
{{Main|Doric Greek}}
The [[Doric Greek|Doric]] dialect was spoken in northwest Greece, the [[Peloponnese]], [[Crete]], southwest [[Asia Minor]], the southernmost islands of the [[Aegean Sea]], and the various Dorian colonies of [[Magna Graecia]] in [[Southern Italy]] and [[Sicily]]. After the classical period, it was mainly replaced by the [[Attic Greek|Attic]] dialect upon which the [[Koine Greek|Koine]] or "common" Greek language of the [[Hellenistic period]] was based. The main characteristic of Doric was the preservation of [[Proto-Indo-European]] {{IPA|[aː]}}, long {{angbr|α}}, which in Attic-Ionic became {{IPA|el|ɛː|}}, {{angbr|η}}. A famous example is the valedictory phrase uttered by Spartan mothers to their sons before sending them off to war: ἢ τὰν ἢ ἐπὶ τᾶς (''ḕ tàn ḕ epì tâs'', literally "either with it or on it": return alive with your shield
or dead upon it) would have been ἢ τὴν ἢ ἐπὶ τῆς (''ḕ t'''ḕ'''n ḕ epì t'''ê'''s'') in the [[Attic Greek|Attic]]-[[Ionic Greek|Ionic]] dialect of an Athenian mother. [[Tsakonian language|Tsakonian]], a descendant of Doric Greek, is still spoken in some parts of the southern [[Regions of ancient Greece#Argolis|Argolid]] coast of the [[Peloponnese]], in the modern prefecture of [[Arcadia (regional unit)|Arcadia]].{{citation needed|date=November 2019}}

===Other cultural distinctions===
[[File:Antike_Polychromie_1.jpg|thumb|[[Doric order]] of architecture with [[polychromy]]]]
Culturally, in addition to their Doric dialect of Greek, Doric colonies retained their characteristic [[Hellenic calendar|Doric calendar]] that revolved round a cycle of festivals, the [[Hyacinthia]] and the [[Carneia]] being especially important.<ref name=EB1911/>

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.

The Dorians seem to have offered the central mainland cultus for [[Helios]]. The scattering of cults of the sun god in [[Sicyon]], [[Argos, Peloponnese|Argos]], [[Ermioni]], [[Epidaurus]] and [[Laconia]], and his holy livestock flocks at [[Taenarum]], seem to suggest that the deity was considerably important in Dorian religion, compared to other parts of ancient Greece. Additionally, it may have been the Dorians to import his worship to [[Rhodes]].<ref>Larson, Jennifer. A Land Full of Gods: Nature Deities in Greek Religion. In Ogden, Daniel. ''A Companion to Greek Religion. Malden'', MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, 56–70.</ref>