Dorium

Dorium (gr. Dorio, or Dorion) is a settlement in the prefecture of Messinia, Greece. According to Athens2004.com, Dorio has a population of 1628, and is 170m above sea level [1]. The small settlement of Ano Dorio is nearby.

Dorio has been mentioned in Homer's Iliad, and by Strabo and Pausanias. Homer recounts a myth that Dorio was the location of a music competition between Thamyris and the Muses. The Muses won.

Homer, Iliad Book 2

Men from Pylos, lovely Arene, Thryum,
by Apheus ford, well-built Aipy, Cyparisseis, 
Amphigenea, Pteleum, Helos, Dorium,  
where the Muses met the Thracian Thamyris,     
and stopped his singing—he was coming back   
from Oechalia, from the court of Eurytus the king, 
having boasted his singing would surpass the Muses,         
daughters of aegis-bearing Zeus, should they compete,
so in their anger the Muses mutilated Thamyris,
taking away his godlike power of song,    
and making him forget his skill in playing the lyre.  

Pausanias:

When the Electra is crossed, there is a spring called Achaia, and the ruins of a city Dorium. Homer states that the misfortune of Thamyris took place here in Dorium, because he said that he would overcome the Muses themselves in song. But Prodicus of Phocaea, if the epic called the Minyad is indeed his, says that Thamyris paid the penalty in Hades for his boast against the Muses. My view is that Thamyris lost his eyesight through disease, as happened later to Homer. Homer, however, continued making poetry all his life without giving way to his misfortune, while Thamyris forsook his art through stress of the trouble that afflicted him.

References

Athens2004.com - Dorio

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