At the close of the Achæan period Attica was the canton which appeared to have the most settled and uniform structure. It now became a favourite refuge of migrant Greeks of many different tribes. This movement seems to have strengthened little Attica in a considerable degree, for tradition ascribes to these immigrants the successful resistance that Attica was able to make when the hordes of the conquerors finally approached her borders. But Attica was far too small and unproductive to retain the mass of fugitives as permanent settlers. So the movement was finally turned towards the islands of the Ægean and the coast of Asia Minor. According to tradition there had already been an Archæan (or Æolian) migration to Lesbos and Tenedos, from whence the Mysian coast and Troas were later colonised. The most important Ionian colonies in the east were in the Cyclades, at Miletus, and at Ephesus. As their power continued to grow, the Ionians gradually Hellenised a broad strip of coast and in the river valleys pushed out a considerable distance to the eastward. The Dorians also followed the movement of the other Greeks to the islands and to Asia. Their most important occupations were Crete, Rhodes, and a small portion of the southern coast of Caria, including the cities of Cnidus and Halicarnassus. By the first half of the eighth century B.C., the Greek world had acquired the aspect which it retained for several centuries. The nation had greatly increased its territory by colonisation. But the district now called Thessaly was in possession of a race that showed little capacity to develop beyond a vigorous and pleasure-loving feudalism; and the Greeks of Epirus and the valley of the Achelous had been for several centuries shut out from the evolution into Hellenism. So apart from the newly risen power of the Bœotians, the future of Greece rested upon the two races that had been but little named in the Achæan period. The Dorians had become a great people. Argos had at first been the leading power of the Peloponnesus, both in religion and in politics. The Doric canton in the valley of the Upper Eurotas had made but slow and difficult progress, until, at the close of the ninth and beginning of the eighth century, that remarkable military and political consolidation was completed which is connected with the name of Lycurgus. This was the starting-point of a growth of Spartan power in consequence of which before the end of the eighth century the balance of Doric power was to pass from Argos to the south of the Peloponnesus.