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. The latter were named "Dorian" by the ancient Greek writers, after the Dorians, the historical population that spoke them. Greek legend asserts that the Dorians took possession of the Peloponnesus in an event called the Return of the Heracleidae (Ἐπιστροφὴ τῶν Ἡρακλειδῶν). Nineteenth-century Classical scholars saw in the legend a possibly real event they termed the Dorian invasion. The meaning of the concept has changed several times, as historians, philologists and archaeologists used it in attempts to explain the cultural discontinuities expressed in the data of their fields. The pattern of arrival of Dorian culture on certain islands in the Mediterranean, such as Crete, is also not well understood. The Dorians colonised a number of sites on Crete such as Lato. Despite nearly 200 years of investigation, the historicity of a mass migration of Dorians into Greece has never been established, and the origin of the Dorians remains unknown. Firm archeological evidence of such an invasion has not been established. Nonetheless, the pervasiveness of the Dorians in literature means that most historians do not reject the theory. Some have linked them or their victims with the emergence of the equally mysterious Sea Peoples during the Late Bronze Age collapse. The meaning of the phrase "Dorian invasion" as an explanation for the cultural and economic breakdown after the Mycenaean period and into the Greek Dark Ages has become to some degree amorphous. Classical tradition, as recorded for example in Herodotus, describes the "Return of the Heracleidae" (Ἐπιστροφὴ τῶν Ἡρακλειδῶν), the descendants of Heracles, who were exiled at his death and returned in later generations to reclaim the dominion that Heracles had held in the Peloponnesus. The Heraclid leaders were the brothers Kresphontes and Temenos, as well as the twins Eurysthenes and Prokles, all descendants of Heracles.

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Related concepts (16)

History of Greece

The history of Greece encompasses the history of the territory of the modern nation-state of Greece as well as that of the Greek people and the areas they inhabited and ruled historically. The scope of Greek habitation and rule has varied throughout the ages and as a result, the history of Greece is similarly elastic in what it includes. Generally, the history of Greece is divided into the following periods: Paleolithic Greece, starting 3.3 million years ago and ending in 20000 BC.

Mycenaean Greece

Mycenaean Greece (or the Mycenaean civilization) was the last phase of the Bronze Age in Ancient Greece, spanning the period from approximately 1750 to 1050 BC. It represents the first advanced and distinctively Greek civilization in mainland Greece with its palatial states, urban organization, works of art, and writing system. The Mycenaeans were mainland Greek peoples who were likely stimulated by their contact with insular Minoan Crete and other Mediterranean cultures to develop a more sophisticated sociopolitical culture of their own.

Late Bronze Age collapse

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