The ruins of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus

The Doric or Dorian Hexapolis () was a

federation A federation (also called a federal state) is an entity characterized by a political union, union of partially federated state, self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a #Federal governments, federal government (federalism) ...

of six cities of Dorian foundation in southwest

Asia Minor Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

and adjacent islands, largely coextensive with the region known as Doris or Doris in Asia (), and included: * Cos, on the island of Cos; *

Cnidus Knidos or Cnidus (; , , , Knídos) was a Ancient Greece, Greek city in ancient Caria and part of the Dorian Hexapolis, in south-western Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey. It was situated on the Datça peninsula, which forms the southern side of the ...

Caria Caria (; from Greek language, Greek: Καρία, ''Karia''; ) was a region of western Anatolia extending along the coast from mid-Ionia (Mycale) south to Lycia and east to Phrygia. The Carians were described by Herodotus as being Anatolian main ...

; *

Halicarnassus Halicarnassus ( ; Latin: ''Halicarnassus'' or ''Halicarnāsus''; ''Halikarnāssós''; ; Carian language, Carian: 𐊠𐊣𐊫𐊰 𐊴𐊠𐊥𐊵𐊫𐊰 ''alos k̂arnos'') was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek city in Caria, in Anatolia.

in Caria; *

Lindus Lindus or Lindos () was one of the most important towns in ancient Rhodes. History It was situated on the eastern coast, a little to the north of a promontory bearing the same name. The district was in ancient times very productive in wine and fi ...

, on the island of

Rhodes Rhodes (; ) is the largest of the Dodecanese islands of Greece and is their historical capital; it is the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, ninth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Administratively, the island forms a separ ...

; * Ialysus on Rhodes; and * Camirus on Rhodes. The members of this ''hexapolis'' celebrated a festival, with games, on the Triopian promontory near Cnidus, in honour of the Triopian

Apollo Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, mu ...

; the prizes in those games were brazen tripods, which the victors had to dedicate in the

temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a place of worship, a building used for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. By convention, the specially built places of worship of some religions are commonly called "temples" in Engli ...

of Apollo; and Halicarnassus was struck out of the league, because one of her citizens carried the tripod to his own house before dedicating it in the temple of Apollo. The ''hexapolis'' thus became the Doric Pentapolis. ( Herod. i. 144.) Pliny (v. 28) says, ''Caria mediae Doridi circumfunditur ad mare utroque latere ambiens'', by which he means that Doris is surrounded by

on all sides, except where it is bordered by the sea. He makes Doris begin at

. In the bay of Doris he places Leucopolis,

Hamaxitus Hamaxitus () was an ancient Greek city in the south-west of the Troad region of Anatolia which was considered to mark the boundary between the Troad and Aeolis. Its surrounding territory was known in Greek as (''Hamaxitia''), and included the t ...

, ''etc.'' An attempt has been made among scholars to ascertain which of two bays Pliny calls ''Doridis Sinus'', the more probable being the Ceramic Gulf. This Doris of Pliny is the country occupied by the Dorians, which

Thucydides Thucydides ( ; ; BC) was an Classical Athens, Athenian historian and general. His ''History of the Peloponnesian War'' recounts Peloponnesian War, the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been d ...

(ii. 9) indicates, not by the name of the country, but of the people: Dorians, neighbours of the Carians.

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; , ; ; – 160s/170s AD) was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine science, Byzant ...

(v. 2) makes Doris a division of his

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

, and places in it

Ceramus Ceramus or Keramos () is a city on the north coast of the Gulf of Gökova, Ceramic Gulf—named after this city—in ancient Caria, in southwest Asia Minor; its ruins can be found outside the modern village of Milas, Ören, Muğla Province, ...

, and

. The term Doris, applied to a part of Asia, does not appear to occur in other writers. In the '' Digesta seu Pandectae'' (533), the second volume of the codification of laws ordered by

Justinian I Justinian I (, ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was Roman emperor from 527 to 565. His reign was marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovatio imperii'', or "restoration of the Empire". This ambition was ...

(527–565) of the

Eastern Roman Empire The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

, a

legal opinion In law, a legal opinion is in certain jurisdictions a written explanation by a judge or group of judges that accompanies an order or ruling in a case, laying out the rationale and legal principles for the ruling. Opinions are in those jurisdi ...

written by the Roman jurist Paulus at the beginning of the

Crisis of the Third Century The Crisis of the Third Century, also known as the Military Anarchy or the Imperial Crisis, was a period in History of Rome, Roman history during which the Roman Empire nearly collapsed under the combined pressure of repeated Barbarian invasions ...

in 235 AD was included about the '' Lex Rhodia'' ("Rhodian law") that articulates the general average principle of marine insurance established on the island of

in approximately 1000 to 800 BC as a member of the Doric Hexapolis, plausibly by the

Phoenicians Phoenicians were an ancient Semitic group of people who lived in the Phoenician city-states along a coastal strip in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily modern Lebanon and the Syrian coast. They developed a maritime civi ...

during the proposed

Dorian invasion The Dorian invasion (or Dorian migration) is an ancient Greek myth and discredited archaeological hypothesis describing the movement of the Dorian people into the Peloponnese region of Greece. According to the myth, the Dorians migrated from c ...

and emergence of the purported

Sea Peoples The Sea Peoples were a group of tribes hypothesized to have attacked Ancient Egypt, Egypt and other Eastern Mediterranean regions around 1200 BC during the Late Bronze Age. The hypothesis was proposed by the 19th-century Egyptology, Egyptologis ...

during the

Greek Dark Ages The Greek Dark Ages ( 1180–800 BC) were earlier regarded as two continuous periods of Greek history: the Postpalatial Bronze Age (c. 1180–1050 BC) and the Prehistoric Iron Age or Early Iron Age (c. 1050–800 BC). The last included all the ...

() that led to the proliferation of the

Doric Greek Doric or Dorian (), also known as West Greek, was a group of Ancient Greek dialects; its Variety (linguistics), varieties are divided into the Doric proper and Northwest Doric subgroups. Doric was spoken in a vast area, including northern Greec ...

dialect A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ...

. The law of general average constitutes the fundamental

principle A principle may relate to a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of beliefs or behavior or a chain of reasoning. They provide a guide for behavior or evaluation. A principle can make values explicit, so t ...

that underlies all

insurance Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to protect ...

References

* {{Ancient Greece topics States and territories established in the 12th century BC States and territories disestablished in the 6th century BC Ancient Greek archaeological sites in Turkey Historical regions of Anatolia Caria Ancient Greek geography Ancient Greeks in Caria Greek Anatolia Greek city-state federations