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Heniochi

The Heniochi (Greek: Ἡνίοχοι, Heníochoi "charioteers") were an ancient tribe inhabiting northwest shores of Colchis (present-day Abkhazia,^{[note 1]} northwestern Georgia) and some say Phasis area. Their country was called Heniocheia (Ancient Greek: Ἡνιοχεία).^[1]

They are attested by a number of ancient historians and others alike, namely: Aristotle, Artemidorus Ephesius, Ovid, Pliny the Elder, Arrian, Strabo and others. It is pointed out that they lived in a quite wide area from Dioscurias (Διοσκουριάς), to Trabzon.

Sources from the 5th to 4th century BC till the 1st century AD note the Heniokhs lived from modern Sochi till Pitiunt - Dioskourias. It is difficult to identify with certainty the relationship between the tribes mentioned by classical authors and the contemporary ethnic groups.^[2] Various scholars relate the tribe to modern day Georgians (specifically Zans and Svans) and/or Abkhaz.^[3][4]

The tribe of Heniochs according to Artemidorus of Ephesus, occupied in the 5th - 1st cc. B.C, the Black Sea littoral that is part of present-day Abkhazia: - from the environs of Pitiunt or Pityus to the river Achaeuntus (the Shakhe river near present-day Tuapse).^[5] Aristotle describes the Heniochi (along with the Acaei) as a group of people "ready enough to kill and eat men."^[6]

• Georgian Soviet Encyclopedia, vol. 11, pg.624, Tb. 1987.
• D. Asheri, "The Achaeans and the Heniochi. Reflections on the Origins and History of a Greek Rhetorical Topos", quoted from Tsetskhladze, Gocha R. (1998). The Greek colonisation of the Black Sea area: historical interpretation of archaeology. Franz Steiner Verlag. p. 271. ISBN 978-3-515-07302-8.