Dorium

DO´RIUM (Δώριον), a town of Messenia, celebrated in Homer as the place where the bard Thamyris was smitten with blindness, because he boasted that he could surpass the Muses in singing. (Hom. Il. 2.599.) Strabo says that some persons said Dorium was a mountain, and others a plain; but there was no trace of the place in his time, although some identified it with a place called Oluris (Ὄλουρις) or Olura (Ὄλουρα), in the district of Messenia named Aulon. (Strab. 8. p.350.) Pausanias, however, places the ruins of Dorium on the road from Andania to Cyparissia. After leaving Andania, he first came to Polichne; and after crossing the rivers Electra and Coeus, he reached the fountain of Achaia and the ruins of Dorium. (Paus. 4.33.7.) The plain of Sulimá appears to be the district of the Homeric Dorium. (Leake, Morea, vol. 1. p. 484; Curtius, Peloponnesos, vol. 2. p. 154.)

(Δώριον). A town of Messenia, where Thamyris the musician challenged the Muses to a trial of skill. Pausanias (iv. 33) notices this ancient town, of which he saw the ruins near a fountain named Achaia.

• wife of Cercetes: Apollod. 2.1.5