Chaonia

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Tribes of Epirus in antiquity.
Tribes of Epirus in antiquity.

Chaonia or Chaon (Greek Χαονία or Χάων) was the name of the northwestern part of Epirus, the homeland of the Epirot tribe of the Chaonians.[1][2] Its main town was called Phoenice. According to Virgil, Chaon was the eponymous ancestor of the Chaonians.[3]

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[edit] Geography

Strabo in Geography,[4] places Chaonia as part of Epirus, now part of north-western Greece and south-western Albania, and reached from the city of Onchesmos (now called Saranda) in the north, to the River Thyamis in the south, and as far as the Ambracian Gulf, including to the south the ancient city of Cestrine (now called Filiates), and represented the southernmost border to the wider region of Illyria. The Roman historian, Appian, mentions Chaonia as the southern border in his description and geography of Illyria.[5]

Important cities in Chaonia included Chimaera (modern Himarë), Buthrotum, Phoenice, Panormos, Onchesmus (today Saranda) and Antigonia. The region was likely named after the Chaonians who settled there.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Malcolm Errington, "A History of Macedonia", California University Press, 1990.
  2. ^ The Cambridge Ancient History: Vol. 6, the Fourth Century BC.
  3. ^ Virgil. Aeneid, 3.295.
  4. ^ Strabo, The Geography, Book VII, Chapter 7.5 at LacusCurtius [1]
  5. ^ Appian, The Foreign Wars, III.1 (ed. Horace White).

[edit] External links

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