Doris

© 1998 Bernard SUZANNE	Last updated December 12, 1998
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Doris is the name of two regions :

one in continental Greece, between Phocis south and Thessalia north, Locris east and Aetolia west, a region previously called Dryopis (area 2, not shown on the maps) ;

another one in southwestern Asia Minor, along the coast of Caria down to the island of Rhodes (area 6).

Both regions owe their name to the fact that they were settled by Dorians. Not long ago, historians thought that Dorian invasions were responsible for the fall of the Mycenæan civilization toward the XIIIth-XIIth centuries B. C. This is no longer the case, and it seems things are not as clear cut, though it is plain that Dorian invasions of the Peloponnese took place toward that time or later, possibly in a more peaceful manner than was thought earlier.
Mythology talks of a Dorus who was the eponym of the Dorians. He was a son of Hellen and thus a grandson of Deucalion and Pyrrha and a brother of Æolus (though there is another tradition, in which Dorus was presented as the son of Apollo and Phthia who, with his two brothers Laodocus and Polypoetes, was slain by Ætolus (the eponym of nearby Ætolia), a son of Endymion, king of Elis, who took over his kingdom). Dorus originally lived in Phthiotis, but his offspring moved north toward the region of Mount Olympus, then inward toward the Pindus range between Thessalia and Epirus under pressure from the Cadmeans (the Phoenicians, offspring of Cadmus settled in the area of Thebes), before moving back south, first in the area now called Doris south of Phthiotis, then at last in Peloponnese (see Herodotus' Histories, I, 56, where the Dorian, presented as a people often on the move, are opposed to the Ionians, seen as descendants of the native Pelasges).

Anyway, the story of the invasion of Peloponnese by the Dorians is closely linked to that of the return of the Heraclidæ in what they viewed as their country, taken away from their ancestor Heracles by Eurystheus, the king of Mycenæ. Indeed, among the many deeds of Heracles, there is the story of his alliance with Ægimius, a son of Dorus, whom he helped win a victory over the Lapithes of king Coronus. In thanksgiving, Ægimius adopted Heracles' son Hyllus and gave him a third of his kingdom, as he did with his two sons Dymas and Pamphylus (the three of them became the eponyms of the three Dorian tribes : Hylleis, Dymanes and Pamphyloi). Hyllus himself, at the head of Heracles' sons, could not recover Peloponnese, but this was done two generations later by his offspring.

Aside from most of Peloponnese except for Arcadia, Dorians, in historical times, had settled islands of southern Cyclades such as Melos and Thera, parts of Crete, and that part of southern Asia Minor called Doris, along the coast of Caria, where they had founded several cities gathered in what was called the Hexapolis : Halicarnassus, Cnidus, Cos and three cities of the island of Rhodes : Lindus, Ialysus and Camirus (Herodotus' Histories, I, 144). But Dorians settlements could also be found in Sicily (including Syracuse, Gela and Acragas), Italy (Tarentum), the Ionian Islands (Corcyra), Africa (Cyrene) and the coast of the Black Sea (including Byzantium), many of these being colonies of Corinth.

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First published January 4, 1998 - Last updated December 12, 1998 © 1998 Bernard SUZANNE (click on name to send your comments via e-mail) Quotations from theses pages are authorized provided they mention the author's name and source of quotation (including date of last update). Copies of these pages must not alter the text and must leave this copyright mention visible in full.