The Dorian Invasion: The Setting

Author(s): John Franklin Daniel, Oscar Broneer and H. T. Wade-Gery

Source: American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 52, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1948), pp. 107-110
Published by: Archaeological Institute of America
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/500556
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 THE DORIAN INVASION*
JOHN FRANKLIN DANIEL
OSCAR BRONEER
H. T. WADE-GERY

THE SETTING
JOHN FRANKLIN DANIEL

HE Dorian invasion figuresrarely,and then only by implication,in the narrativeof

the Homeric poems. This is because the poems were the product of the non- and
pre-Dorian element of the population and their chief concern was with Mycenaean
Greece during the years preceding the Dorian conquest. Despite the small part which the
Dorians play in the narrative, the effects of the pressure which was to result in the collapse
of Mycenae are clearly apparent in the social and historical presuppositions of the Iliad and
the Odyssey.
The Dorian invasion was neither a single military campaign nor a purely Greek phenome-
non. Rather it was the peninsular Greek phase of the overwhelming movement of peoples
who swept out of the north and engulfed the ancient world at the end of the Bronze Age.
Their eruption into the civilized lands around the eastern Mediterranean brought to a cata-
clysmic end an age of brilliant cultural development and prepared the way for the emer-
gence, many years later, of a new and vastly different world.
In order to see the Dorian invasion in its proper perspective, we must first glance back
to the happier days which had gone before. In the fourteenth and the first two-thirds of the
thirteenth century, Mycenae was the center of an extended and prosperous realm. This
was a period of extraordinary cultural uniformity throughout Greece. The artistic develop-
ment, which furnishes our chief archaeological evidence, was practically identical in all the
chief metropolitan centers: even the specialist is rarely able to tell whether a vase of the
fourteenth century was made at Mycenae, at Athens, Corinth, Thebes, or Pylos. The art
was Panhellenic to a degree which Greece was not to know again until the declining years
of the classical period. This presupposes a free and continuous interchange of goods and
ideas throughout Mycenaean Greece. It is tempting to build political theory upon archaeo-
logical fact and postulate a united realm under the kings of Mycenae.
Greece enjoyed extensive seaborne trade and intimate commercial relations with the
countries along the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. Mycenaean pottery has been
found in considerable quantities from Troy in the north down along the eastern coast of the
Mediterranean to Egypt and up the Nile into Nubia. It is also reported in Sicily and south-
ern Italy. Most of the vases exported were small jars with narrow openings, handy containers
for the shipment of valuable liquids, goods which were clearly trademarked as Greek by
these attractive containers. Other vases, such as cups and bowls and the great kraters with
elaborate painted decoration, must have been sought for their own sake as works of art,
* These three
papers were read at the forty-ninth General Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America
with the title, "Symposium on the Homeric Period."

107

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108 THE DORIAN INVASION
since their open shapes were not suited for use as vehicles for the shipment of other prod-
ucts. The stylistic uniformity of this pottery, particularly the false-necked jars, suggests
that it was mass produced at one or more places on the Greek mainland specifically for the
export trade.
The flourishing overseas trade led to even more binding ties. Rhodes was settled by
Mycenaean Greeks at least as early as the beginning of the fourteenth century, and smaller
groups of Greek settlers established colonies on Cyprus and probably at some places on the
Asiatic coast. These, which doubtless served as distributing points in the Mycenaean trade,
retained close contacts with the homeland, and contributed greatly to its prosperity.
Greece enjoyed a busy trade with Egypt and the countries within the Egyptian sphere
of influence. Her relations with the Hittite empire were less extensive, to judge from our
present evidence, although we know from the Hittite archives that the two countries had
some contacts, perhaps more diplomatic than commercial. The Achaean state was consid-
ered the equal, albeit a weaker equal, of the great eastern empires. It was a period of a
reasonably stable balance of power and of a considerable degree of international trade and
understanding, in spite of some friction over conflicting interests in buffer states. The three
empires reached unparalleled heights of wealth and civilization. Just when it seemed that
centuries of happy prosperity lay ahead the blow fell, heavily and without warning.
About 1240 B.c. the sea lanes were suddenly cut and Mycenae found itself isolated from
the east. The Mycenaean export trade collapsed overnight; it did not taper off but came to
an abrupt and cataclysmic end. The colonies were cut off from the homeland and left to
fend for themselves. There can be little doubt that the disaster was occasioned by the
first appearance of the hordes which were sweeping down from the north, by land and by
sea, and which emerged into the full light of historical records a few years later. It was
the vanguard of the great movement which was beginning to scourge the ancient world,
and the Greek phase of which was to become known as the Dorian invasion. Mycenae lost
her colonies and her international trade, but managed to survive for a century or more.
Some of her neighbors were less fortunate. The Hittite empire was suddenly overwhelmed
and collapsed about 1200 B.c. after a brief struggle. The invasion then rolled on through
Syria and Palestine and fell upon Egypt a decade later. Ramses III twice met the invaders
in battle and routed them. But it was a Pyrrhic victory; Egypt was irreparably weakened
and never regained the preeminence which it had held during the eighteenth and nine-
teenth dynasties.
We obtain only occasional glimpses of the invaders after they were turned back from
the Delta. They apparently broke up into smaller ethnic groups and wandered about seek-
ing permanent homes. One group settled in Palestine, where we know them as the Philis-
tines of the Old Testament. Some of the Mycenaean Greeks who had settled in Asia
Minor and who had been cut off by the invasion seem to have joined the wanderers. Miss
Goldman has found what may be evidence of one such group at Tarsus, where squatters
using Mycenaean pottery lived for a few years in hovels over the burnt ruins of the Hittite
palace, only to disappear again without a trace.
We have brought the account of the invasion in the east well down into the twelfth cen-
tury. We now turn back to 1240 B.c. and the Greek mainland. When the sea communica-
tions were cut, Mycenae withdrew as best it could and began feverish preparations to with-
stand the new onslaught which it saw coming from the north. The fortified area at Tiryns
was greatly extended to provide shelter for refugees from the surrounding countryside; a
large granary was built at Mycenae and the circuit wall itself was probably constructed at

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 JOHN FRANKLIN DANIEL: THE SETTING 109
this time; Athens made elaborate preparations to withstand a siege. At the same time or
soon after some towns such as Zygouries and Prosymna were abandoned, presumably be-
cause their inhabitants sought protection in stronger places nearby.
It is significant that these defensive moves seem to have been made on a purely individual
basis: Mycenae looked to its own fortifications and Athens thought primarily of saving
Athens. There seems to have been no concerted plan for a unified defense of Greece. No
block-houses have been discovered in the passes and no fortifications at the Isthmus. My-
cenae, its chief source of wealth and power lost with the overseas trade, was no longer in a
position to guarantee the security of the smaller towns. Each was thrown on its own, and the
initiative passed to the local princes. Communications became precarious and the close cul-
tural community which had been characteristic of the preceding period ceased to exist.
This new state of affairs was quickly reflected in the pottery. Whereas the pottery of the
several Mycenaean centers had been practically identical during the period of prosperity,
it now broke up into many local schools, showing only sporadic contact with Mycenae. The
ceramic style of Athens diverged more and more from that of Mycenae; Zygouries devel-
oped an easily recognizable style of its own in the years immediately before it was aban-
doned; local styles sprang up in western Greece and the Ionian islands; Rhodes and the
Dodecanese went their own way; and Cyprus, far to the east, lost for a time all contact with
the art of the west.
This brings us, on strictly archaeological evidence, into the early twelfth century, the
traditional time of the Trojan war. It is not my purpose to attempt to prove that the Trojan
expedition actually took place as described in the Iliad and Odyssey. I do, however, wish
to emphasize the fact that the Homeric narrative in its essentials is completely consistent
with our archaeological evidence for the early twelfth century and no other period in Greek
history. Agamemnon, as king of Mycenae, is titular sovereign of all the Achaeans, a dignity
which none of the Achaean princes questions in principle although they often practice a high
degree of independence. The situation recalls that of late mediaeval France and, like it,
seems to represent a stage in the break-up of a strong centralized power. This hypothesis is
confirmed by the archaeological evidence which reveals, during the fourteenth and the earlier
part of the thirteenth century, a uniform culture revolving around Mycenae, followed dur-
ing the second half of the thirteenth and the beginning of the twelfth century by a gradual
loss of influence on the part of Mycenae and a corresponding growth in local autonomy. It
should be noted that a claim to hereditary Panhellenic sovereignty is utterly inconceivable
in Greece at any time after the Dorian conquest and until definitely post-Homeric times. An
expedition such as that against Troy, and even the original Rape of Helen, is in keeping with
the unsettled conditions of the years about 1200 B.c. The wanderings of Odysseus, again,
and of the other Achaeans, and their difficulties in regaining their homelands, agree with
the period of chaos which followed the eastern invasion. A Greek expedition against Troy
at a time when the Greek mainland was threatened from the north would have been political
and military folly, but Homer makes no attempt to treat it otherwise.
The chief Mycenaean cities, then, recognized the threat and took drastic measures to
defend themselves against the invading Dorians. Their defences were at first effective;
the chief Mycenaean centers managed to survive, though with increasing poverty, well
into the twelfth century. But their collapse was inevitable, and one by one they fell before
the invaders, until toward the end of the century Mycenae collapsed, and with it the heart
of the civilization which it had epitomized for so many centuries.
After the fall of Mycenae a few Achaeans escaped and made their way to Cyprus, where

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110 THE DORIAN INVASION

they managed to preserve their political independence, though in other respects they fared
but little better than those who remained behind in Greece. Other Achaeans retained their
ethnic entity in the mountain fastnesses of Arcadia, which the Dorians never conquered;
but, poor and undeveloped at all times, the Arcadians were unable to preserve anything but
the language of their illustrious ancestors.
A few towns seem to have survived the conquest. The later Athenians took great pride in
the tradition that the Dorians had never conquered Athens. The little town of Asine also
seems to have survived. The Traganes tholos tomb at the Messenian Pylos was used con-
tinuously from before the fall of Mycenae into the protogeometric period. But these are ex-
ceptions which, by their very misery, emphasize the completeness of the break. An age of
greatness was gone forever, and only folk memories remained.
UNIVERSITY MUSEUM JOHN FRANKLIN DANIEL
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

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