Dorians, << DAWR ee uhnz, >> were a group of ancient Greeks. Later Greeks believed the Dorians lived in northern Greece before the city of Troy fell around the early 1100’s B.C. According to Greek tradition, the Dorians overran most of the Peloponnesus (the southern peninsula of Greece) around 1100 B.C. The best-known Greeks of Dorian descent were the Spartans. In addition to Sparta, Dorian cities included Argos, Corinth, Megara, and Rhodes. Dorians also settled in Crete, Sicily, southern Italy, the Sporades Islands, and southwestern Asia Minor (present-day Turkey).
Some scholars have questioned whether the Dorians actually existed. Information about them comes mostly from later Greek traditions.
