Appendix Oneparts of it turned out to be wrong. By paralleling the Dorians
with the Germanic invaders of the Roman Empire, for exam-
ple, Meyer ushered historians down a lengthy cul-de-sac. Just
as the Germanic peoples, on racist presuppositions, were en-
dowed with virile and martial qualities that were indispensable
for the European triumph over the rest of the world, so the
Dorians represented a younger and more vigorous Hellenic
strain than the somewhat effete "Achaeans" and lonians. Do-
rianism reached the height of its popularity in the 19305, but
rapidly subsided after World War II.s
By the 19605 the creative side of the Dorian Invasion was
seldom celebrated. The invasion was still understood, however,
as responsible for the fall of the Mycenaean world. Yet even the
destructive side of the invasion was difficult to substantiate.
That catastrophe had overwhelmed Greece at the end of the
Bronze Age was beyond question: archaeologists had found
dozens of sites that were either destroyed or abandoned at the
end of the LH IIIB or during the LH me period. The difficulty
was that the destruction did not seem to have been wrought by
newcomers, or by invaders who came to stay. The destructions,
first of all, occurred over a fairly long period, from about 1225
B.C. to the end of the twelfth century, and according to no
geographic pattern that hinted at invasion. More disturbing
was the fact that no intrusive artifacts—whether pottery, or-
naments, tools, or weapons—had been found above the de-
struction levels.
The lack of "Dorian" material at particular sites, and even
on regional levels, had for some time been observed by archae-
ologists. The first systematic survey of the end of the Greek
Bronze Age, however, was presented by Vincent Desborough
in 1964. 4 In magisterial fashion Desborough traced the de-
- The ideological basis of Dorianism was most thoroughly exposed
by E. Will, Doriens et loniens (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1956). See also
C. Starr, The Origins of Greek Civilization (New York: Knopf, 1961), 70—74. - V. Desborough, The Last Mycenaeans and their Successors. An Ar-
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