Appendix One
mon (or Doric) Greek and that South Greek was the dialect of
a "narrow aristocracy."
The argument appears to have run into considerable oppo-
sition among Mycenologists.I0 Several do not agree, first of all,
that the four scribal variants are to be explained as manifesta-
tions of a "special" dialect. 11 Among Mycenologists who do
concede that point, not all are inclined to identify that dialect
with Common Greek.I2 Most importantly, even those scholars
who do see the variants as manifestations of Common Greek
(or of North Greek) are not agreed that the sporadic appearance
of four Common Greek forms in an otherwise South Greek di-
alect attests to the survival—to say nothing of the preponder-
ance—of a Common Greek dialect in southern Greece during
the LH period. 13
The thesis has formidable difficulties that even a nonspecial-
ist can appreciate. For instance, Chadwick explains the Doric
dialect of Crete as the survival of the Common Greek that was
brought to the island when the Greeks first conquered Crete,
ca. 1450 B.C. The aristocrats who engineered the conquest
"were accompanied by large numbers of the lower classes; they
would have served as soldiers for the invasion, but thereafter
been rewarded with grants of land in Crete, so that within two
generations there would be a substantial Doric-speaking pop-
ulation entrenched in all the main centres." 14 Here one must
- Brillante, "L'invasione dorica oggi," 176, reports that when
Chadwick repeated his analysis at the Rome colloquium, "riserve sono state
espresse da Soesbergen, Crossland, De Simone."
- P. G. van Soesbergen, "The Coming of the Dorians," Kadmos
20 (1981): 38—51, holds that none of the variants reflect a "special" or sub-
standard dialect.
- E. Risch, the discoverer of "special" Mycenaean, sees nothing
diagnostic in the special forms and continues to hold that Doric was a con-
servative descendant of the dialect spoken in northern Greece in LH times;
cf. his "Die griechischen Dialekte im 2. vorchristlichen Jahrtausend," Studi
Micenei ed Egeo-Anatolici 20 (1979): 102.
- See, most recently, R. D. Woodard, "Dialectal Differences at
Knossos," Kadmos 25 (1986): 49—50 and 73—74.
- "Who were the Dorians?" 114.
2IO
