further north, was also a Doric colony, being founded by the Corcyraeans. In Sicily we find several powerful Doric cities: Syracuse, founded by Corinth; the Hyblaean Megara, by Megara; Gela, by Rhodians and Cretans; Zancle, subsequently peopled by Messenians, and hence called Messene; Agrigentum, founded by Gela; and Selinus, by the Hyblaean Megara. In southern Italy there was the great Doric city of Tarentum, founded by the Lacedaemonians. In the eastern seas there were also several Doric cities: Potidaea, in the peninsula of Chalcidice, founded by Corinth; and Selymbria, Chalcedon, and Byzantium, all three founded by Megara. During the invasion of Xerxes, Doris submitted to the Persians, and consequently its towns were spared. Doris was one of the oldest members of the Delphic Amphictyony and, according to Thucydides, it was an important and strategic region already 25 years before the Peloponnesian War, the first time when the Phoceaens and the Lacaedemonians first clashed against each other, the former as invaders and the latters as protectors of the Doric capital Kytinion. In the 3rd century BC the Doric Tetrapolis joined the Aetolian League. Subsequently, as we have already seen, they were assisted by the Lacedaemonians, when attacked by the more powerful Phocians and neighbouring tribes. Their towns suffered much in the Phocian, Aetolian, and Macedonian wars, so that it was a wonder to Strabo that any trace of them was left in the Roman times. (Strab. ix. p. 427.) The towns continued to be mentioned by Pliny In the 6th century AD the ancient Voion is probably the only one of the cities of the Doric Tetrapolis still mentioned in the Synecdemus of Hierocles. References External links Ancient Greece