DO RIANS, one of the four principal peoples of Greece, who took their name, accord ing to the legend, from Dorus, the son of Hellen, who settled in Doris; but Herodotus says that in the time of king Deucalion they inhabited the district Phthiotis; and in the time of Dorus, the son of Hellen, the country called Histiteotis, at the foot of Ossa and Olympus, But the statement of Apollodorus is more probable, according to which they would appear to have occupied the whole country .along the northern shore of the Corinthian gulf. Indeed, Doris proper was far too small and insignificant a district to furnish a sufficient number of men for a victorious invasion of the In this remarkable achievement they were conjoined with the Heracleidre, and ruled in Sparta. Doric colonies were then founded in Italy, Sicily, and Asia Minor. Strikingly as all the four nations of Greece differed from each other in language, manners, and form of government, the D. in particular differed from the Ionians. The former pre
served a certain primitive solidity and earnestness, but with it something coarse and hard. See 0. Mailer's Die DOn€7' (2 vols., Breslau, 1824; 2d ed. 3 vols, 1844). The Doric dialect bore the same character; it was harsh and rough, while the Ionian was soft and polished, yet the former had something venerable from its antiquity, and was therefore employed in hymns and choruses. In philosophy, the influence of the Doric character was particularly visible in the Pythagorean school and its attachment to the aristocracy. It is no less traceable in architecture in the the strong unadorned Doric pillars, which forum so marked a contrast to the slender and decorated Ionian columns.