Humanities › History & Culture The Geography and Migrations During the Dark Age of Ancient Greece The Dark Age Migrations Share Flipboard Email Print Ancient World, from The Atlas of Ancient and Classical Geography by Samuel Butler, Ernest Rhys, editor (Suffolk, 1907, repr. 1908). Public Domain. Courtesy of Maps of Asia Minor, the Caucasus, and Neighboring Lands History & Culture Ancient History and Culture Greece Figures & Events Ancient Languages Egypt Asia Rome Mythology & Religion American History African American History African History Asian History European History Genealogy Inventions Latin American History Medieval & Renaissance History Military History The 20th Century Women's History View More By N.S. Gill Ancient History and Latin Expert M.A., Linguistics, University of Minnesota B.A., Latin, University of Minnesota N.S. Gill is a Latinist, writer, and teacher of ancient history and Latin. She has been featured by NPR and National Geographic for her ancient history expertise. our editorial process N.S. Gill Updated March 08, 2017 We'll never know exactly how Greece came to create colonies in Asia Minor and in southern areas of Italy, Megale Hellas, known better by the Latin name of Magna Graecia. Here is the modern theory followed by what the ancient Greeks thought had happened. The essence of what we think happened is that a Dark Age invasion of a people known as Dorians swept down from the North, settling first in the Corinthian Gulf and the northwest Peloponnese, then the south and east, and the islands of Crete, Rhodes, and Kos. These Dorians pushed the native Greeks out of their homelands. Eventually some mainland Greeks migrated to Ionia. The ancient Greeks had their own explanation of the Dorian Invasion.... Ancient Version of the Dorian Invasion Heraclides Who Were the Dorians? Thucydides on the Greek Colonies "Sixty years after the capture of Ilium, the modern Boeotians were driven out of Arne by the Thessalians, and settled in the present Boeotia, the former Cadmeis.... Twenty years later, the Dorians and the Heraclids became masters of Peloponnese; so that much had to be done and many years had to elapse before Hellas could attain to a durable tranquillity undisturbed by removals, and could begin to send out colonies, as Athens did to Ionia and most of the islands, and the Peloponnesians to most of Italy and Sicily and some places in the rest of Hellas."- Thucydides Greeks in Asia Minor During the Trojan War Ionian Settlements Sources: [URL = < vislab-www.nps.navy.mil/~fapapoul/history/dorians.html >]Carlos Parada Heraclides[www.perseus.tufts.edu/GreekScience/Students/Ellen/EarlyGkAstronomy.html] Early Greek AstronomersIonians mingled with Lydians and Persians and sea-faring people. The Question of a Dorian InvasionThomas Martin Overview of Greek History in this section addresses both the question of the invasion and Greek chronology. Homeric Geography