Each city in ancient Greece had its own scale and that scale took the name of that city, the very first scale is the Dorian, all the others came from the Dorian.
Dorians were the "ancestors" of the Spartans.
I am from Sparta and i had read a book about the music in ancient Greece, i dont remember much about the theory but what i found interesting is that the notes in a scale were moving from high to low!

the Spartans were using 2 tones in a row and a semitone at the end and if that pattern is repeated we have the Dorian
(E-D-C-B)-(A-G-F-E), if you think it as mathematics the Dorian is very balanced, pretty amazing,
by the way E Dorian was the basic scale like C Major is today

[Edited by BluesShredder on 09-08-2001 at 06:36 AM]