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The Chaonians (Χάονες in Ancient Greek), were an ancient Greek tribe of Chaonia, which covered the northwestern portion of Epirus. Ancient scholars note that they were an Epirot Greek tribe. The Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax does not include the Chaonians among the Illyrian tribes, but it does not specify whether or not they were a Greek people. The geographer Hecataeus of Miletus of the 6th century BC describes the Dexari (Ancient Greek Δέξαροι), the most northern Chaonian tribe, as Greek speaking people. On their central frontier lay another Epirote kingdom, that of the Molossians, to their southwest stood the kingdom of the Thesprotians, and to their north the lived the Illyrian tribes. According to Virgil, Chaon was the eponymous ancestor of the Chaonians.

Ancient sources

According to Strabo, the Chaonians, along with the Thesprotians and the Molossians, were the most famous among the fourteen tribes of Epirus, because they once ruled over the whole of Epirus. Plutarch tells us that the Chaonians were one of the three principal clusters of Greek-speaking tribes that had emerged in Epirus, the other two being the Thesprotians and the Molossians, who were the most powerful among all other tribes in the region.

They were regarded as "barbarians" by their neighbors and there are some clues that they knew little about cultivation and ate uncooked foods. They developed a governing system relying on an annually chosen leader. By the 5th century BC they were eventually conquered and had combined to a large degree with the neighboring Thesprotians and Molossians. The Chaonians were part of the League of Epirus until 170 BC when they were annexed into the Roman Empire.

See also

• Chaonia
• Thesprotians
• Molossians

References

1. ^ Hammond, NGL (1994). Philip of Macedon. London, UK: Duckworth. "Epirus was a land of milk and animal products...The social unit was a small tribe, consisting of several nomadic or semi-nomadic groups, and these tribes, of which more than seventy names are known, coalesced into large tribal coalitions, three in number: Thesprotians, Molossians and Chaonians...We know from the discovery of inscriptions that these tribes were speaking the Greek language (in a West-Greek dialect)"
2. John Boardman, The Cambridge Ancient History, 423
3. Virgil, Aeneid, 3.295
4. Strabo, The Geography, Book VII, Chapter 7.5 at LacusCurtius
5. Plutarh, Pyrrhus at The Internet Classics Archive
6. Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Book II

• Ancient Greece
• Ancient peoples