CHAPTER XV - Asiatic Dorians

Summary

The islands of Rhodes, Kôs, Symê, Nisyros, Kasus, and Karpathus, are represented in the Homeric catalogue as furnishing troops to the Grecian armament before Troy. Historical Rhodes, and historical Kôs, are occupied by Dorians, the former with its three separate cities of Lindus, Jalysus, and Kameirus. Two other Dorian cities, both on the adjacent continent, are joined with these four so as to constitute an Amphiktyony on the Triopian promontory or south-western corner of Asia Minor —thus constituting an Hexapolis, including Halikarnassus, Knidus, Kôs, Lindus, Jalysus, and Kameirus. Knidus was situated on the Triopian promontory itself; Halikarnassus more to the northward, on the northern coast of the Keramic Gulf: neither of the two are named in Homer.

The legendary account of the origin of these Asiatic Dorians has already been given, and we are compelled to accept their Hexapolis as a portion of the earliest Grecian history, of which no previous account can be rendered. The circumstance of Rhodes and Kôs being included in the Catalogue of the Iliad leads us to suppose that they were Greek at an earlier period than the Ionic or Æolic settlements: it may be remarked that both the brothers Antiphus and Pheidippus from Kôs, and Tlêpolemus from Rhodes, are Herakleids,—the only Herakleids who figure in the Iliad: and the deadly combat between Tlêpolemus and Sarpêdôn may perhaps be an heroic copy drawn from real contests, which doubtless often took place between the Rhodians and their neighbours the Lykians.