References to Archaic Events Relating to Macedonia
The Dorians
Legends which survived among the Dorians and which
have come down to us through Pindar, Herodotus and
other ancient writers, say that the earliest ancestors
of the Dorians were Makednoi (that is, Macedonians),
who migrated to Doris from Pindos, more precisely from
the Lakmos region. Since it has already been seen
that the Dorians took their name from Doris, where
they formed themselves into one ethnic group by the
union of the local inhabitants and the newcomers,
it can readily be inferred that the name Makednoi
and the mention of Pindos as their original homeland
do not refer to the whole of the Dorian tribe but
just to one of its component groups - not the Hylleis,
however, because these had settled in present-day
Sterea Hellas earlier. Ancient texts containing
echoes of fragments of a very old lost epic about
Aigimios say that the Dorians stood in danger of
attack by the Lapiths, that the king of the Dorians,
Aigimios, sought the help of Herakles in return for
the reward mentioned above, and that Herakles repulsed
the Lapiths and established the Dorians in a region
from which he had driven out the Dryopians.
It follows that the race which was led by Aigimios
and helped by Herakles was not yet the Dorians but
the Makednians. Herakles here is no more than the
representative of a people in central Sterea Hellas.
One of the texts mentioned above says that Aigimios
people at the time of the Lapith attacks were in
Histiaiotis; others imply that they had already
reached the northern part of present-day Sterea Hellas.
The second version must be the earlier one, because
it tallies with the mention of the alliance of the
people who are represented by Herakles. The mention
of the Lapiths as enemies of the Dorians, i.e. the
Makednians, does not conflict with this version since,
as we have seen, there are traces of Lapith settlements
in the Spercheios Valley.
The Dorians of the historical period were divided into
three tribes: Hylleis, Dymanes, and Pamphyloi.
The eponymous heroes of the Dymanes and the Pamphyloi
were believed to be the sons of Aigimios who had led
the Dorians to Doris. The eponymous hero of the Hylleis
was said to be the son of Herakles who had acquired one
third of Aigimios kingdom for helping him against the Lapiths.