Hellenes were divided into tribes: the Ionians, the Aeolians and the Dorians while special mentioned were the Acheans. According to the myth, Hellen (the ancestor) had 3 sons: Aeolus, Xuthus, and Dorus. Xuthus had two sons, Achaeus and Ion.
Ionians lived in Attica, Euboea and the Cycladic islands in the eastern Aegean islands and in the classical Ionia on the western coast of Asia Minor. According to tradition, the oldest Ionian country was Attica where their roots had Ionians from Asia Minor and the island Ionians. During the Dorian invasion, Ionians in groups migrated to Asia Minor, and with them a small groups of other Greek tribes that were eventually merged with the Ionians. There are two groups of Ionians: Asian and Attica.
Asia Minor Ionians were influenced by more advanced Orient cultural and had been elevated before the other Greeks. They built Miletus, Ephesus, Phocaea, Clazomenae , Teos, Erythrai, Lebedos, Colophon, Priene, Myos.
Those ten cities with two islands form the old federation of Ionian cities (Dodecapolis). Ionians from Attica surpassed in the development tribes in Asia Minor.
Dorians were great and strong Hellenic tribe. Doric lands represented almost the whole Peloponnese, middle Greece except Boeotia and Attica, the Greek regions of Epirus, the islands of the Ionian Sea, the South Aegean Islands, Crete and southwestern part of Asia Minor. The Spartans were the most famous representatives of the Dorians. All the Dorians were persistent warriors, guardians of tradition, farmers, culturally underdeveloped than the Ionians.
Aeolianswere third-Hellenic tribe. Their native country was Thessaly, which was located under Mount Olympus. Apart from Thessaly, they occupied the Boeotia, northern Aegean islands and the north-western part of Asia Minor.
From Doric migration and the fall of Mycenae to the first Olympics has passed over about 400 years in which the Ionians, the Dorians and Aeolians have expressed their tribal personalities, developed their economic and social life, founded and partly developed their city-states in the Balkan, Asia Minor and on the islands.
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