The common calendar and cycle of festivals, observed by all Dorians (of which the Carneia was chief), and the distribution in Greece of the worships of Apollo and Heracles, which attained pre-eminence mainly in or near districts historically “Dorian,” suggest that these cults, or an important element in them, were introduced comparatively late, and represent the beliefs of a fresh ethnic superstratum. The steady dependence of Sparta on the Delphic oracle, for example, is best explained as an observance inherited from Parnassian ancestors.
The social and political structure of the Dorian states of Peloponnese presupposes likewise a conquest of an older highly civilized population by small bands of comparatively barbarous raiders. Sparta in particular remained, even after the reforms of Lycurgus, and on into historic times, simply the isolated camp of a compact army of occupation, of some 5000 families, bearing traces still of the fusion of several bands of invaders, and maintained as an exclusive political aristocracy of professional soldiers by the labour of a whole population of agricultural and industrial serfs. The serfs were rigidly debarred from intermixture or social advancement, and were watched by their masters with a suspicion fully justified by recurrent ineffectual revolts. The other states, such as Argos and Corinth, exhibited just such compromises between conquerors and conquered as the legends described, conceding to the older population, or to sections of it, political incorporation more or less incomplete. The Cretan cities, irrespective of origin, exhibit serfage, militant aristocracy, rigid martial discipline of all citizens, and other marked analogies with Sparta; but the Asiatic Dorians and the other Dorian colonies do not differ appreciably in their social and political history from their Ionian and Aeolic neighbours. Tarentum alone, partly from Spartan origin, partly through stress of local conditions, shows traces of militant asceticism for a while.
Archaeological evidence points clearly now to the conclusion that the splendid but overgrown civilization of the Mycenaean or “late Minoan” period of the Aegean Bronze Age collapsed rather suddenly before a rapid succession of assaults by comparatively barbarous invaders from the European mainland north of the Aegean; that these invaders passed partly by way of Thrace and the Hellespont into Asia Minor, partly by Macedon and Thessaly into peninsular Greece and the Aegean islands; that in east Peloponnese and Crete, at all events, a first shock (somewhat later than 1500 b.c.) led to the establishment of a cultural, social and political situation which in many respects resembles what is depicted in Homer as the “Achaean” age, with principal centres in Rhodes, Crete, Laconia, Argolis, Attica, Orchomenus and south-east Thessaly; and that this régime was itself shattered by a second shock or series of shocks somewhat earlier than 1000 b.c. These latter events correspond in character and date with the traditional irruption of the Dorians and their associates.
The nationality of these invaders is disputed. Survival of fair hair and complexion and light eyes among the upper classes in Thebes and some other localities shows that the blonde type of mankind which is characteristic of north-western Europe had already penetrated into Greek lands before classical times; but the ascription of the same physical traits to the Achaeans of Homer forbids us to regard them as peculiar to that latest wave of pre-classical immigrants to which the Dorians belong; and there is no satisfactory evidence as to the coloration of the Spartans, who alone were reputed to be pure-blooded Dorians in historic times.
Language is no better guide, for it is not clear that the Dorian dialect is that of the most recent conquerors, and not rather that of the conquered Achaean inhabitants of southern Greece; in any case it presents no such affinities with any non-Hellenic speech as would serve to trace its origin. Even in northern and west-central Greece, all vestige of any former prevalence has been obliterated by the spread of “Aeolic” dialects akin to those of Thessaly and Boeotia; even the northern Doris, for example, spoke “Aeolic” in historic times.
The doubt already suggested as to language applies still more to such characteristics as Dorian music and other forms of art, and to Dorian customs generally. It is clear from the traditions about Lycurgus (q.v.), for example, that even the Spartans had been a long while in Laconia before their state was rescued from disorder by his reforms; and if there be truth in the legend that the new institutions were borrowed from Crete, we perhaps have here too a late echo of the legislative fame of the land of Minos. Certainly the Spartans adopted, together with the political traditions of the Heracleids, many old Laconian cults and observances such as those connected with the Tyndaridae.
Bibliography.—K. O. Muller, Die Dorier (ed. F. W. Schneidewin, Breslau, 1844); G. Gilbert, Studien zur altspartanischen Geschichte (Gottingen, 1872); H. Gelzer, “Die Wanderzuge der lakedamonischen Dorier,” in Rhein. Museum, xxxii. (1877), p. 259; G. Busolt, Die Lakedaimonier und ihre Bundesgenossen, i. (Leipzig, 1878); S. Beloch, “Die dorische Wanderung,” in Rhein. Mus. xlv. (1890). 555 ff.; H. Collitz, Sammlung der gr. Dialekt-Inschriften, iii. (Gottingen, 1899-1905); R. Meister, “Dorier und Achaer” in Abh. d. K. Sachs. Ges. Wiss. (Phil.-hist. Kl.), xxiv. 3 (Leipzig, 1904).
(J. L. M.)
DORIA-PAMPHILII-LANDI, a princely Roman family of Genoese extraction. The founder of the house was Ansaldo d’Oria, consul of Genoa in the 12th century, but the authentic pedigree is traced no further back than to Paolo d’Oria (1335). The most famous member of the family was Andrea Doria (q.v.), perpetual censor of Genoa in 1528 and admiral to the emperor Charles V., who was created prince of Melfi (1531) and marquis of Tursi (in the kingdom of Naples) in 1555. The marquisate of Civiez and the county of Cavallamonte were conferred on the family in 1576, the duchy of Tursi in 1594, the principality of Avella in 1607, the duchy of Avigliano in 1613. In 1760 the title of Reichsfurst or prince of the Holy Roman Empire was added and attached to the lordship of Torriglia and the marquisate of Borgo San Stefano, together with the qualification of Hochgeboren. That same year the Dorias inherited the fiefs and titles of the house of Pamphilii-Landi of Gubbio, patricians of Rome and princes of San Martino, Valmontano, Val di Toro, Bardi and Corupiano. The Doria-Pamphilii palace in Rome, a splendid edifice, was built in the 17th century, and contains a valuable collection of paintings. The Villa Doria-Pamphilii with its gardens is one of the loveliest round Rome. During the siege of 1849 it was Garibaldi’s headquarters.