The consequences of the Dorian invasion, if slowly developed, were great and lasting.

That revolution not only changed the character of the Peloponnesus--it not only called into existence the iron race of Sparta--but the migrations which it caused made the origin of the Grecian colonies in Asia Minor.

It developed also those seeds of latent republicanism which belonged to the Dorian aristocracies, and which finally supplanted the monarchical government--through nearly the whole of civilized Greece.

The revolution once peacefully consummated, migrations no longer disturbed to any extent the continent of Greece, and the various tribes became settled in their historic homes.
IV.

The history of Sparta, till the time of Lycurgus, is that of a state maintaining itself with difficulty amid surrounding and hostile neighbours; the power of the chiefs diminished the authority of the kings; and while all without was danger, all within was turbulence.
Still the very evils to which the Spartans were subjected--their paucity of numbers--their dissensions with their neighbours--their pent up and encompassed situation in their mountainous confines--even the preponderating power of the warlike chiefs, among whom the unequal divisions of property produced constant feuds--served to keep alive the elements of the great Doric character; and left it the task of the first legislative genius rather to restore and to harmonize, than to invent and create.
As I am writing the history, not of Greece, but of Athens, I do not consider it necessary that I should detail the legendary life of Lycurgus.