Chaonia or Chaon ( or Χάων) was the name of the northwestern part of Epirus, the homeland of the Epirote Greeks tribe of the Chaonians.[Errington, Malcolm. A History of Macedonia. University of California Press, 1990.][The Cambridge Ancient History: Vol. 6, the Fourth Century BC.] It was one of the three main areas of ethnic division of Epirus, the other being Molossia and Thesprotia.
Chaonia traditionally stretched between the Thyamis river in the south and the Akrokeraunian range in the north, between present-day Greece and Albania. Its main town was called Phoenice. In Virgil Aeneid, Chaon was the eponymous ancestor of the Chaonians.[Virgil. Aeneid, 3.]
Name
According to mythology, the eponymous ancestor of the Chaonians was
Chaon. Etymologically, both the region of Χαονία 'Chaonia', and the name of its inhabitants Χάονες 'Chaones,
Chaonians', derive from Χάων 'Chaon', which in turn derives from the Greek *χαϝ-ών 'place with abysses'; cf. Χάον ὄρος 'Chaon mountain' in Argolis, χάος 'chaos, space, abyss', χάσκω 'to yawn', χάσμα 'chasm, gorge'.
Geography
Strabo in his
Geography,
[Strabo. The Geography. Book VII, Chapter 7.5 ( LacusCurtis).] places Chaonia between the Ceraunian mountains in the north and the
River Thyamis in the south. The Roman historian,
Appian, mentions Chaonia as the southern border in his description and geography of
Illyria.
[Appian. The Foreign Wars, III.1 (ed. Horace White).]
Important cities in Chaonia included Cestrine (modern Filiates), Chimaera (modern Himarë), Buthrotum, Phoenice, Kassiopi (Modern Kassiopi) Panormos, Ilium (modern Molossoi) Onchesmus (modern Sarandë), Antigonia and Palaeste.
Mythology
In Vigil's
Aeneid, Aeneas visits Chaonia and meets
Andromache and
Helenus. He is told he must continue on to Italy, and instructed to meet the
Sibyl concerning a more specific prophecy as to
Aeneas's destiny.
See also
Citations
Bibliography
External links
