The Coming of the Greeks. Indo-European Conquests in the Aegean and the Near East

Appendix One

therefore far more likely that before the Dorians' arrival the

helots spoke a non-Greek language, that after the Dorian con-

quest they became bilingual, and that after a generation or two

they abandoned their non-Greek language and spoke only

Doric Greek. 27

In Messenia the same situation seems to have obtained, for

here, too, the helots of the fifth century were apparently Doric

speakers. For the Argolid the question is thornier. Herodotus

(8.73) says that the Kynourians, whom he equates with Ornea-

tai or perioikoi, "were doricized over time, and because they

were ruled by the people of Argos." There also were traditions

that in certain cities—Hermione, Asine, and Sicyon being the

most important—there had once been a substantial non-Do-

rian population. But in the Classical Period (and very likely

even in the Archaic Period) all of the inhabitants of the Argolid

spoke Doric Greek. Altogether, it seems to me, the evidence

would support a thesis that the Dorians "took over" a popula-

tion whose first language was something other than Greek, and

whose ancestors had been at the lower levels of Mycenaean so-

ciety.

The legend of the Return of the Heraclidae may therefore

have a basis in fact. As a charter myth, it bestowed legitimacy

not produce a third language. Cf. the remarks of W. Hallo, The Ancient
Near East (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanavich, 1971; coauthored with
W. Simpson): "The symbiosis of two population groups differing in both
race and language may produce a new stock that is mixed physically but not
linguistically: the resulting generation may be wholly bilingual, that is,
speaking both languages equally well, or wholly unilingual, that is opt for
one language in preference to the other. Rarely does a truly mixed language
result" (p. 21).

27. It is unlikely that Doric and a non-Greek language coexisted for
    several centuries in Laconia or anywhere else in the regions where Doric was
    spoken in historical times. Had such coexistence occurred, Doric would
    surely have been modified in the same way that Proto-Greek had been in
    the LH period. Perhaps under the Dorians the structure of society was more
    conducive to the hellenization of the helots than it had been under the pal-
    ace regimes.

22O