Doric or Dorian was a  dialect of Ancient Greek. Its variants were spoken in the southern and eastern Peloponnese, Crete, Rhodes, some islands in the southern Aegean Sea, some cities on the coasts of Asia Minor, Southern Italy, Sicily, Epirus and Macedon. Together with Northwest Greek, it forms the "Western group" of classical Greek dialects. By Hellenistic times, under the Achaean League, the Achaean Doric Koine appeared exhibiting many peculiarities common to all Doric dialects and which delayed the spread of the Attic-based Koine to the Peloponnese until the 2nd century BC.