We must also refer our reader to the investigation of the worship of Apollo, and the mythology of Hercules, in the second book, since from these alone can be collected the internal history of the Doric race during its earliest period.
9. One event which, even if it had not been noticed by tradition, would still have been felt and recognised from the effects it produced, is the migration of the Dorians from the district of Olympus to Crete. It is, indeed, a wonderful migration, being from one end of the Grecian world to the other, and it presents a striking anomaly in the history of the ancient colonies. We must suppose that the Dorians, whilst in their first settlements, excluded from the plain, and pressed by want, or restless from inactivity, constructed piratical canoes, manned these frail and narrow barks with soldiers, who themselves worked at the oars, and thus being changed from mountaineers into seamen—the Normans of Greece—set sail for the distant island of Crete. The earliest trace of the migration in question is found in the Odyssey, in which poem it is mentioned that the _thrice-divided_ Dorians formed a part of the population of Crete.(113) Andron states, even with geographical accuracy, that these Dorians came to Crete from Hestiæotis, at that time called Doris, under Tectaphus, the son of Dorus, together with Achæans and some Pelasgians who had remained in Thessaly.(114) According to Dicæarchus, the Dorians migrated to Crete from Pelasgiotis;(115) by which is meant the same district as that called by Andron Hestiæotis, since Pelasgiotis and Hestiæotis bordered on each other in the vicinity of Tempe. Again, Diodorus affirms that Asterius king of Crete, the adopted father of Minos, the legislator, was the son of Tectamus (Teutamus).(116) The essential parts of these statements are rendered certain by two proofs: the first of these is, that the worship of Apollo was practised in Crete with precisely the same ceremonies as at Tempe, and connected with many of the same traditions; the second is, the very remote period at which the principles of the Doric constitution were systematized and established in Crete, so that they afterwards became a model and standard for other states of that race. This gives us the fullest right to consider Minos of Cnosus as a Dorian. We may assert, with still more reason, that the name of Minos indicates a period in which the Doric invaders united a part of the island into one state, and, by extending their power over the Cyclades and many maritime districts, obtained, according to the expression of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Aristotle, the dominion of the sea. To discredit this Doric migration would be to reject the simple explanation of many facts recorded in later history. At the same time, however, we do not mean to throw any doubt upon the later migrations from Peloponnesus, when it had already fallen under the power of the Dorians.(117) We only assert that these took place at too late a period to account for many unquestionable facts. The portion of Crete first occupied by the Dorians was, according to Staphylus, the eastern coast;(118) or, to speak more accurately, the eastern side of the north coast. Here stood the Minoan town of Cnosus, with its harbour Heracleum and colony Apollonia. From this point the dominion, customs, and worship of the Dorians were at a very early period extended over the districts inhabited by the Eteocretans, Pelasgians, and Cydonians; and, with the help of later migrations, pervaded the whole island.(119) And although the different dialects could still be distinguished at the time of Homer,(120) yet in later times the Doric appears to have been universally adopted.(121)