The History and Antiquities of the Doric Race, Vol. 1 of 2Müller, Karl Otfried
History
The History and Antiquities of the Doric Race, Vol. 1 of 2
Müller, Karl Otfried
Dorians -- History; Greece -- Antiquities, Dorian; Greece -- History -- Dorian Invasions, approximately 1125-1025 B.C.
9. One event which, even if it had not been noticed by tradition, would
still have been felt and recognised from the effects it produced, is the
migration of the Dorians from the district of Olympus to Crete. It is,
indeed, a wonderful migration, being from one end of the Grecian world to
the other, and it presents a striking anomaly in the history of the
ancient colonies. We must suppose that the Dorians, whilst in their first
settlements, excluded from the plain, and pressed by want, or restless
from inactivity, constructed piratical canoes, manned these frail and
narrow barks with soldiers, who themselves worked at the oars, and thus
being changed from mountaineers into seamen—the Normans of Greece—set sail
for the distant island of Crete. The earliest trace of the migration in
question is found in the Odyssey, in which poem it is mentioned that the
_thrice-divided_ Dorians formed a part of the population of Crete.(113)
Andron states, even with geographical accuracy, that these Dorians came to
Crete from Hestiæotis, at that time called Doris, under Tectaphus, the son
of Dorus, together with Achæans and some Pelasgians who had remained in
Thessaly.(114) According to Dicæarchus, the Dorians migrated to Crete from
Pelasgiotis;(115) by which is meant the same district as that called by
Andron Hestiæotis, since Pelasgiotis and Hestiæotis bordered on each other
in the vicinity of Tempe. Again, Diodorus affirms that Asterius king of
Crete, the adopted father of Minos, the legislator, was the son of
Tectamus (Teutamus).(116) The essential parts of these statements are
rendered certain by two proofs: the first of these is, that the worship of
Apollo was practised in Crete with precisely the same ceremonies as at
Tempe, and connected with many of the same traditions; the second is, the
very remote period at which the principles of the Doric constitution were
systematized and established in Crete, so that they afterwards became a
model and standard for other states of that race. This gives us the
fullest right to consider Minos of Cnosus as a Dorian. We may assert, with
still more reason, that the name of Minos indicates a period in which the
Doric invaders united a part of the island into one state, and, by
extending their power over the Cyclades and many maritime districts,
obtained, according to the expression of Herodotus, Thucydides, and
Aristotle, the dominion of the sea. To discredit this Doric migration
would be to reject the simple explanation of many facts recorded in later
history. At the same time, however, we do not mean to throw any doubt upon
the later migrations from Peloponnesus, when it had already fallen under
the power of the Dorians.(117) We only assert that these took place at too
late a period to account for many unquestionable facts. The portion of
Crete first occupied by the Dorians was, according to Staphylus, the
eastern coast;(118) or, to speak more accurately, the eastern side of the
north coast.
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