ASIATIC DORIANS.
The islands of Rhodes, Kôs, Symê, Nisyros, Kasus, and Karpathus, are
represented in the Homeric Catalogue as furnishing troops to the
Grecian armament before Troy. Historical Rhodes, and historical Kôs,
are occupied by Dorians, the former with its three separate cities of
Lindus, Jalysus, and Kameirus. Two other Dorian cities, both on the
adjacent continent, are joined with these four so as to constitute
an amphiktyony on the Triopian promontory or south-western corner of
Asia Minor,—thus constituting an hexapolis, including Halikarnassus,
Knidus, Kôs, Lindus, Jalysus, and Kameirus. Knidus was situated on
the Triopian promontory itself; Halikarnassus more to the northward,
on the northern coast of the Keramic gulf: neither of the two are
named in Homer.
The legendary account of the origin of these Asiatic Dorians has
already been given, and we are compelled to accept their hexapolis
as a portion of the earliest Grecian history, of which no previous
account can be rendered. The circumstance of Rhodes and Kôs being
included in the Catalogue of the Iliad leads us to suppose that they
were Greek at an earlier period than the Ionic or Æolic settlements.
It may be remarked that both the brothers Antiphus and Pheidippus
from Kôs, and Tlêpolemus from Rhodes, are Herakleids,—the only
Herakleids who figure in the Iliad: and the deadly combat between
Tlêpolemus and Sarpêdôn may perhaps be an heroic copy drawn from real
contests, which doubtless often took place between the Rhodians and
their neighbors the Lykians. That Rhodes and Kôs were already Dorian
at the period of the Homeric Catalogue, I see no reason for doubting.
They are not called Dorian in that Catalogue, but we may well suppose
that the name Dorian had not at that early period come to be employed
as a great distinctive class-name, as it was afterwards used in
contrast with Ionian and Æolian. In relating the history of Pheidôn
of Argos, I have mentioned various reasons for suspecting that the
trade of the Dorians on the eastern coast of the Peloponnesus was
considerable at an early period, and there may well have been Doric
migrations by sea to Krête and Rhodes, anterior to the time of the
Iliad.
Herodotus tells us that the six Dorian towns, which had established
their amphiktyony on the Triopian promontory, were careful to
admit none of the neighboring Dorians to partake of it. Of these
neighboring Dorians, we make out the islands of Astypalæ, and
Kalymnæ,[371] Nisyrus, Karpathus, Symê, Têlus, Kasus, and Chalkia,—on
the continental coast, Myndus, situated on the same peninsula with
Halikarnassus,—Phasêlis, on the eastern coast of Lykia towards
Pamphylia. The strong coast-rock of Iasus, midway between Milêtus
and Halikarnassus, is said to have been originally founded by
Argeians, but was compelled in consequence of destructive wars
with the Karians to admit fresh settlers and a Neleid œkist from
Milêtus.[372] Bargylia and Karyanda seem to have been Karian
settlements more or less Hellenized. There probably were other Dorian
towns, not specially known to us, upon whom this exclusion from the
Triopian solemnities was brought to operate. The six amphiktyonized
cities were in course of time reduced to five, by the exclusion of
Halikarnassus: the reason for which (as we are told) was, that a
citizen of Halikarnassus, who had gained a tripod as prize, violated
the regulation which required that the tripod should always be
consecrated as an offering in the Triopian temple, in order that
he might carry it off to decorate his own house.[373] The Dorian
amphiktyony was thus contracted into a pentapolis: at what time this
incident took place, we do not know, nor is it perhaps unreasonable
to conjecture that the increasing predominance of the Karian element
at Halikarnassus had some effect in producing the exclusion, as well
as the individual misbehavior of the victor Agasiklês.
[371] See the Inscriptions in Boeckh’s collection, 2483-2671: the
latter is an Iasian Inscription, reciting a Doric decree by the
inhabitants of Kalymnæ; also Ahrens, De Dialecto Doricâ, pp. 15,
553; Diodor. v, 53-54.
[372] Polyb. xvi, 5.
[373] Herodot. i, 144.