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The Elymians () were an ancient tribe people who inhabited the western part of Sicily during the Bronze Age and Classical antiquity.
The Elymian language is considered to have been a part of the Indo-European language family. While an ancient tradition that the Elymians came from Troy – and were originally an Anatolian people – is corroborated by archeological data, the more generally supported opinion is that Elymian was an Italic language, with similarities to Classical Latin. Hence an Italic peoples origin for the Elymians is considered to be more likely.
The Greek historian Philistus refers to the presence of a people of Ligures origin, although he does not identify it with the Elymians. In modern times, historians such as Heinrich Nissen and Karl Julius Beloch investigated the possibilities of a Ligurian origin following the numerous common epigraphic and toponymic references, still found in the cities of Lerici, Segesta and Entella.
Apart from mythological tales, there is little known about the identity and culture of the Elymians. They are indistinguishable from their Sicani neighbours in the archaeological record of the early Iron Age (c. 1100–c. 700 BC). Thereafter, they appear to have adopted many aspects of the culture of the Greek colonists of Sicily, erecting the temple at Segesta and using the Greek alphabet to write their own language. As yet, no one has succeeded in deciphering the Elymian language.
However, they turned on Carthage during the First Punic War and allied with Roman Republic instead. The Elymians were granted a privileged status under Roman rule and were exempted from taxes. This was said to have been in recognition of the Elymians' claim of Trojan ancestry, which was seen as making them cousins of the Roman people, who also claimed to have been descended from the Trojans. The Elymians appear to have largely disappeared from view under Roman rule, presumably becoming assimilated into the general Sicilian population.
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