Dorus

In Greek mythology, Dorus (Ancient Greek: Δῶρος) is a son of Hellen who was the eponymous founder of the Dorians. Each of Hellen's sons founded a primary tribe of Greece: Aeolus the Aeolians, Dorus the Dorians and Xuthus the Achaeans (from Xuthus's son Achaeus) and Ionians (from Xuthus's adopted son Ion, in truth a son of the god Apollo), aside from his sister Pandora's sons with Zeus. According to the Bibliotheke, "Dorus received the country over against Peloponnese and called the settlers Dorians after himself."

Dorus was killed by Apis when he tried to invade the Peloponnese. According to Karl Kerenyi, the Dorians recalled that three times Heracles had aided their "oldest king", Aigimios, "under whom they had not yet emigrated to the Peleponnesos." Kerenyi's source is the Bibliotheca (II.7.7), who though he is late, was working with ancient materials lost to us.

The eponymous figure of "Dorus" is a back-formation: all tribal groups have myths of an "original', whose name is the eponym of the tribe, even tribal eponyms in Genesis. The oldest are essentially eponyms of extended families, who were worshipped in archaic cults into Roman times. A man's name, Dōrieus, occurs in the Linear B tablets at Pylos, one of the regions invaded and subjected by the Dorians. Whether it had the ethnic meaning of "the Dorian" is unknown. Modern derivations of "Dorians" do not depend on a figure of Dorus: see Name of the Dorians.

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