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.)