DORIANS, one of the four great branches of the Greek nation. They derive their name, according to legend, from Dorus, the son of Hellen. They dwelt first in Histixotis, were then driven by the Perrhxbi into Macedonia, forced their way into Crete, where the lawgiver Minos sprang from them, built the four Dorian towns (Dorica Tetrapolis) at the foot of Mount (Eta, between Thessaly, dEtolia, Locris and Phocis, and subsequently, together with the Heraclidx, made a settlement in the Pelopon nesus, where they ruled in Sparta. Colonies emigrated from them to Italy, Sicily and Asia Minor. The Dorians were in many ways the reverse of the Ionians. The Doric manner always retained the antique style, and with it something solid and grave, but at the same time hard and rough. The Doric dialect was broad and rough; the Ionic delicate and smooth; it was the form made use of in solemn odes, for example, in hymns and in choruses forming part of the national celebrations and the acting of the drama at Athens. This use
of the word has been perpetuated; i.e., the Scottish dialect, in contrast with the more polished literary English, being called Doric. The Cretan and Spartan legislative codes of Minos and Lycurgus were much more rigid than the mild Athenian institutions of Solon. The Spartan women wore the light tucked-up hunting-dress, while the Ionian females ar rayed themselves in long sweeping garments. Both have been idealized by artists: the one in Artemis and her nymphs, the other in Pallas Athene and the Canephorm. The same contrast appears no less strikingly in their architecture, in the strong, unadorned Doric and the slender, elegant Ionian columns. See Muller, (Die Dorier); Grote, 'History of Greece.'