Sprache und Kultur # 3

Tbilisi 2002

Staatliche Ilia Tschawtschawadse Universität Tbilisi für Sprache und Kultur

Institut zur Erforschung des westlichen Denkens

(pp. 68-83)

 

 

Giorgi Leon Kavtaradze

AN ATTEMPT TO INTERPRET SOME ANATOLIAN AND CAUCASIAN
ETHNONYMS OF THE CLASSICAL SOURCES

One of the most important parts of the world, the cradle of the earliest civilisation, Anatolia, together with the Caucasus can be considered as a bridge connecting Europe and Asia. That is the reason why Anatolia and the Caucasus have so many common features in their history in nearly every aspect of life. Before the middle of the third millennium BC both of these regions were undoubtedly inhabited (and mainly still are) by non-Indo-European tribes. The number and pervasiveness of apparent early loan-words argues that Asia Minor, alike the pre-Greek Aegean and the pre-early Italic Apenines, had a substantial, settled, non-Indo-European popula­tion before the bearers of Anatolian and Armenian languages of the Indo-European family arrived.[1]

 Many characteristics of the various aspects of life of the Ancient Near Eastern people still exist among the population of the Caucasus and particularly of Georgia. Except the well-known parallels detected among the materials of Çatal Höyük and the Caucasian ethnological data, attention can also be paid to the man's sculpture of cultic character, discovered by H. Hauptmann in Nevali Çori (southeastern Anatolia). The sculpture has a big protuberance at the middle of its breast,[2] the purpose of which can be explained only by comparing it with the Colchian (western Georgian) mythological image of Ocho-Kochi, who instead of hair on his breast, has a protuberance in the form of a pointed bone or a stone-axe. He attacks by-passing people, whom he kills, by embracing them.[3]

 The oldest history of Anatolia, well studied from different view-points – Hittite, Assyrian, Phrygian, Greek, Median, Persian, Roman, Byzantine, Armenian, Seljukian, Osmanian, Tur­kish – is relatively poorly examined from the Cau­casian standpoint, though the Caucasus borders the Anatolian world from the north-east, and people of Kartvelian (South-Caucasian) origin – the Lazi or Djani/Chani (i.e. Čani) – are still living in the north-eastern corner of Anatolia on the Black Sea littoral, east to the city of Trabzon.

 The main reason of such a negligence, even at the time of the study of the adjacent areas to the Caucasus could be caused by the fact that no Caucasian nation was represented on the political map of the world during the last two centuries with the short exception of the three years period when the Georgian Democratic Republic was established, occupied by Bolshevik Russia in February-March 1921. However, the tradition of the statehood in Georgia counts thousands of years. As it was pointed out, Georgia is the only country of the Christendom where the socio-political and cultural development dates uninterruptedly from the classical times (from the late part of the 4th century BC) to the beginning of the 19th century.[4]

 The interest towards the Kartvelian heritage began to evoke in the last quarter of twentieth century. It was detected that Proto-Kartvelian language existed contemporarily with such large groups of languages as Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Semitic, Proto-Uralo-Altaic and Proto-Dravidian, which have numerous descendants and together with them was regarded as an equal member of one and the same linguistic super-family. Defining the place for the bearers of the Proto-Kartvelian language on the pre-historical map along with the above-mentioned linguistic groups became inevitable. In new constructions even the problem of localisation of the bearers of Proto-Indo-European was related to the dispo­si­tion of Proto-Kartvelian because of the strong linguistic ties existing between these two families. Therefore the Caucasian-East Anatolian area became the focus of new studies.[5]

 There is an almost commonly shared opinion that Hittite tribes must have come to Anatolia from other regions in the later part of the third millennium and that Anatolia cannot be their original homeland.[6] There are too many evi­dences of unanalyzable place and personal names across Anatolia to suspect anything other than a non-Indo-European substratum.[7] The non-Indo-European substratum is well represented in "Hittite" (Indo-European-Anatolian) languages. As far as the Hittite language shows deep marks of influence of the non-Indo-European substratum and the Hittite religion and literature display only faint traits of Indo-European character, it was assumed that there was probably only a thin layer of Indo-European speakers, a superstratum above Anatolian popu­lation who largely managed to retain their own culture.[8]

 The Hattic (the language of Hattians or Proto-Hittites) is considered to be a true substratum in the Hittite imperial area.[9] There is much evidence that Hattic was spoken at least in a large part of Central Anatolia within the Kızıl Irmak (Hittites’ Marassantia, Halys of Greeks) bend, before Hittite came into use there; several prominent deities of the Hittite pantheon, addressed in Hattic, have Hattian names, besides, the throne names of Hattusilis I and all his successors were Hattic as well. Special features of the Nesite and Palaic languages (of the Hittite-Anatolian group) can be convincingly attributed to the Hattic influence. The Hittites called the language not their own, but Hattians hattili (i.e. – the "language of Hatti"), referring to it by an adjective based on the name Hatti – which they used for their own territory. At the same time they called their own language nisili (Nesite) – language of Neša, after the name of this city (the same as Kaneš, Kültepe near Kayseri, ancient Mazaca).

 According to the most widespread opinion, the subst­ra­tum of the Luwians and the rest of Asia Minor, including Cyprus, Lemnos and other islands, was apparently Hurrian or, more precisely, Proto-Hurrian.[10]

 The Hattic displays definite features of structural and material similarity to the North-western Caucasian or Abkhazo-Adighéan langua­ges, while the Hurrian – with North-eastern Caucasian or Vainakho-Daghestanian languages.

 Determination of connections between Ancient Near Eastern languages and any other known language of the world becomes one of the most critical issues of comparative linguistic studies. According to some specialists, this question, taken either in a typological or in a genetic sense, can be answered in both cases on the basis of the Caucasian material, and if the hypotheses about the connections of the old Near Eastern and modern Caucasian languages turned out to be tenable, this would point to a prehistoric situation in which the northern part of the Near East was divided among the same groups of the population who occupy the Caucasus till today.[11]

 We can distinguish three linguistic groups among the native Caucasian population. From the archaeological view-point, the first group, i.e. bearers of the North-western Caucasian languages, is identified with the Maikop and post-Maikop cultures of the western and central parts of the North Caucasus. At the same time there are some signs that the population bearing the Hattic invaded Central Anatolia from the north-east; the funeral rites of the northern stock-breeding tribes, quite different from earlier and contemporary Anatolian graves, seem typical for them. The second group, belonging to the North-eastern Caucasian population seems to be connected with the Kura-Araxes culture of the north-eastern, eastern and central parts of the Caucasus, Eastern Anatolia, Levant and North-western Iran. The third group of the so-called "Caucasian languages", Kartvelian or South Cau­casian, located nowadays in the south-western part of the Caucasus, displays relations mainly with the areas situated south-west from the Caucasus. This group seems to have been connected with the languages which played a role of a substratum for the Greek, Hittite and even for the Hattic.

 According to some linguists Proto-Kartvelian language was closer to Hattic rather than to the North-western Caucasian languages.[12] Ch. Girbal even attributes Hattic to Kartvelian languages, but he operates exceptionally with the lexical data.[13] It must be also taken into account that a certain part of Hittite-Armenian lexical parallels, which, only with a few exceptions, are of non-Indo-European origin and presumably derived from the vocabulary of the indigenous inhabitants of Asia Minor,[14] can also be partially traced in Kartvelian languages, which, together with other Caucasian languages, are the living relics of the ancient Near Eastern-Mediterranean world.

 As the Western Transcaucasia and Eastern Anatolia represented contact zones between three important cultures of the northern periphery of the Near East, in the second part of the 4th and early 3rd millennia BC – the Maikop and/or post-Maikop cultures, the Kura-Araxes culture and the so-called "Büyük Güllücek culture" of the Central Anatolia and some other relative to it cultures of the northern and north-western parts of Anatolia – and considering the assumption that the North-western Caucasian cultures are connected with the predecessors of the Abkhazo-Adighéan people and the Kura-Araxes culture with the Proto-Hurrian-North-eastern Caucasian group – the Kartvelian linguistic family must be tentatively and hypothetically identified, in very diffused outlines, with the bearers of the Anatolian culture of the Büyük Güllücek circle.[15] The Büyük Güllücek culture was still typical for the north-eastern regions of Central Anatolia, between the upper and lower flows of the Kızıl-Irmak in the early third millennium BC.

 In the second millennium BC the territories east to the lower flow of the Kızıl-Irmak and south to the Black Sea were inhabited by the Kaška tribe.[16] By Gregory Giorgadze, the language of Kaškaeans could be neither Hittite, Hurrian, Luvian or Palaic, nor Hattian. G. Giorgadze is convinced that the Kaškaean ethno-toponyms and data of onomastics are indicating more on their connection with old Colchian or Megrelo-Lasian language than with Abkhazo-Adighéan languages.[17]

 According to some scholars, in the first millennium BC Kartvelian tribes settled in the region located somewhere between the upper and lower flows of the Kızıl-Irmak.[18] At the same time, the Lazi or Djani/Chani, still leaving in north-eastern Anatolia, are generally considered as one of the few non-Turkish peoples of Anatolia having survived in modern Turkey with their language and racial consciousness intact and representing remnants of a racial group which once was widespread around the coasts of the Black Sea.[19]

 As to the physical anthropologists, the combination of some traits peculiar to the so-called Chorokhi-Rionian anthropological type which is now preserved only in the adjoining to these rivers (Chorokhi and Rioni) regions, was formerly spread on a much wider area. This type can be distinguished even today nearly on the whole territory of modern Turkey. It seems that the population of Kartvelian origin or those connected with it was autochtonous in Anatolia.

 The reason why the above mentioned old Pontic population survived – the Lazi or Djani/Chani – must be searched in the peculiar character of their landscape. New Turcoman lords of Anatolia, sons of steppes and wide pastures, were startled by the unhabitual character of the Lazian country, representing a ‘sea of trees’ in their imagination. In a Turkish Ballad of "Dede Korkut", a father warns his son against descending from the open yayla through the dark valleys of Pontus, where armed men lurk deep among the trees, to Trebizond:[20]

 

 Son, in the place where you would go, Twisted and tortuous will the roads be;

 Swamps there will be, where the horsemen will sink and never emerge;

 Forests there will be, where the red serpent can find no path;

 Fortresses there will be, that rub shoulders with the sky…

 Your destination is a frightful place. Turn back!

 

 The region south to Trebizond indeed was defended by inaccessible castles. The Pontic valleys retained an old system of military parishes or banda for a long time. The local Dere Begs ruled the valleys from high castles, until the middle of the 19th century. Even the modern Turkish administrative districts in Pontus repeat the same old boundaries. As it was noticed, it is not conservatism but geography that dictates that the medieval and modern boundaries must be the same.[21]

 The Pontic mountains are not continuously parallel to the sea and, in their western part, there are two breaks, where the Halys (Kızıl Irmak) and the Iris (Yeşil Irmak) can be navigated inland and which cannot be blocked like passes. There are also two stretches, in iron-bearing Chalybia and around Omidia, just west to Cerasus, where the mountains fall abruptly into the sea, so that there remains only a little coastal settlement to resist the infiltration from the interior. A similiar situation had already occurred in more ancient times when the old colonial ‘empire’ of Sinope had assembled almost precisely the same disconnected patches, including Trebizond. Therefore it becomes quite obvious why the newcomers chose these vulnerable parts from the beginning and the first Turcoman groups settled in the western part of Pontus – at the mouth of the Iris, in Chalybia, and west of Cerasus. Thenceforth the empire of Trebizond had been  represented in fact as a series of coastal enclaves, sandwiched between Turcoman stretches. From seven Trebizondian provinces only the western­most one – the Philabonites valley – was lost to the Turcomans entirely on the early stage of their invasion to Pontus.[22]

 In the western part of Pontus an admini­strative unit – called Canik – emerged after the conquest of Sultan Bayezid in 1392 and was transformed by Tamerlane in an independent emirate in 1402, after the battle of Ankara. The origin of the name derives from the fact that the only part of the Pontic coast conquered by the Ottomans before the major campaign of 1461 was called by them by the common name for the whole Pontic coast, Canik, in the same way as the Seljuks of Konya had named their state "Rum", after the Greek "Rhomaioi" who lived in it, although they (Seljuks) never conquered the New Rome of Constantinople.[23] At the very beginning of the 15th century, a German mercenary, Johann Schiltberger, visited the district which he referred to as "Zegnickh" or "Genyck." An Armenian prince, Haitoun, uses "Genescy" for Trebizond.[24] In the historical literature of the 19th century the name of the Genetes peninsula (modern Iasun-Burun) was mentioned in connection with the name of the country, as well as a passage from the "Bible" about "Tubal-Cain, who forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron".[25]

 In the period from the late thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, the Empire of Trebizond was supposedly still in­habited by the Dja­ni/Ča­ni/ Chani and referred by Byzantine, Armenian and Moslem authors as  "Djanik/Chanik", or other va­riants of the same name – Chanyt, Hanyt, Janyt. They regarded Pontus as the country of the "Djani/Chani". Ibn Bibi, the author of the late thirteenth century, uses the word "Chaneti", the Georgian name for the whole coast of Lazistan, for the Empire of Trebi­zond. The same designation with the same meaning is used by Ata Malik Juvaini in the same century and Shukrullah in the fifteenth century.[26]

 A. Bryer connects the toponyme Chanik with the name "Chani" which the Lazi call themselves[27] and at the same time he points out that in classical and early medieval sources the Lazi (i.e. Djani/Chani – G.K.) and Tzani are determined as different from each other, if not allied, people, therefore they should be considered separately. By A. Bryer, the matter is that the term "Chanik" does not directly derive from Tzani, but Chani, i.e. the Lazi. As Chani was a name called by the Lazi to themselves, while the whole population of the coast – such as Greeks and Lazi – were and are commonly called Lazoi,  A. Bryer considers the terms Lazi and Chani to be largely interchangeable. At the same time, he thinks that the Tzani may have lost their identity as early as in the tenth century – probably through assimilation with the Greeks or the Lazi who were, in any case, commonly regarded as "Chani".[28]

 But the Lazi, the Djani/Chani and the Tzani (Tzanikñn ¦ynow)  are essentially the same people and the difference between Chani and Tzani is founded on the circumstance of the terminological nature: indeed, the "Tzano'i" is the Greek spelling of "Chani" and thus there is no reason to change the old view-point of Procopius that the name Djanik/Chanik is derived from that of the Tzani people who lived there. In reality the difference must be noticed not between the Lazi and the Chani on the one hand, and the Tzani on the other, as A. Bryer assumes, but between the Lazi on the one hand and the Chani or Tzani on the other, i.e. among one and the same population, the first part of which – Lazi – lived on the sea littoral and the second – Chani (or by the Greek spelling Tzani) – inside the country. It is well known that already in the eleventh century the Tzanian lands north of Bayburt were known as "Djanet'i" (in Georgian sources) or "Djanivk'" (in Armenian sources).

 By the words of the Armenian historian of the 5th century, P'awstos Biwzand, the Armenian king, Pap, stated about the representative of Mamikonean family, Musegh, that "his ancestors abandoned their kingdom in the realm of the Tzenk and came to our ancestors".[29] In his letter to the king Varazdat, cited by the same historian, Musegh's brother Manuel informs that "our ancestors were the kings in the realm of the Tzenk. And on account of quarrels [between] *brothers and because much blood flowed, we set out to seek a haven and settled [here]".[30] Though Moses Xorenac'i interpreted the Tzenk as China,[31] already P'awstos Biwzand wrote that the realm of Mamikoneans was "the realm of Taik",[32] "the strongholds of Taik"[33] and that "the district of Tayk" was their "own district".[34] According to P'awstos', "the impregnable castle" of Mamikoneans "was called Eraxani".[35] Eraxani was located in the vicinity of the modern town Erkinis at the east bank of the Choruh north to its junction with the Oltu cayi,[36] i.e. in Tao.

 As to the Georgian tradition the territory north to the junction of the Chorokhi and the Oltisis tskali is known under the name of Tzak. It still has the same name in the first part of the eighteenth century in the "Geography of Georgia" of Vakhushti Batonishvili. By the information of Jacob Reineggs, who was sent as a Russian "commissioner" to the courts of Georgian kings – Heraclius II and Solomon I – in 1779-1783, the land of Georgian-speaking tribe of Djani (Tschanati) is divided by the river Djorokhi (Tchoroghi, Turkish – Çoruh nehri) before it turns round to Batumi (Battum) from the land of Lazians who retain their old Megrelian language.[37] In the "Geography" of Ananias of Širak this territory was mentioned under the name Tzakatk.[38] Both these terms, Tzenk and Tzak, seem to be connected with the ethnonyme Tzani or "Djani/Chani".[39] The tribe of Tzani or Djani/Chani lived mainly in Pontic Alps. From the late Middle Ages the "Djani/Chani" became simply "Lazi," supposedly because of the predominant use of the latter term in Turkish language.

 The above discussion discloses the reason why the old authors hold the opinion that the Djani /Chani, who were not called yet "Lazi" at their time, were a different tribe from the latter. About the ancestors of the Djani/Chani (or the Tzani) and the Lazi (or the Colchians) Procopius gives us the following information: "Some early writers, have stated that the territory of the Trapezuntines is adjoined either by the Sanoi who at the present day are called Tzanoi, or by the Kolchoi, calling another people Lazoi, who are actually called by this name at the present day. And yet neither of these statements is true. For in the first place the Tzanoi live at a very great distance from the coast as neighbours of the Armenians in the interior, and many mountains stand between which are thoroughly impassable and altogether preci­pitous, and there is an extensive area always devoid of human habitation, ravines from which it is impossi­ble to climb out, forested heights and impassable chasms – all these prevent the Tzanoi from being on the sea. In the second place, it is impossible that the Lazoi should not be the Kolchoi, because they inhabit the banks of the Phasis river; and the Kolchoi have changed their name at the present time to the Lazoi…".[40]

 This statement of Procopius quite agrees with the situation characteristic to his time, when the name "Lazi" was endemic only for the Phasis/Rioni basin and not for the Trapezund area, and the name "Tzani" was retained only for an inaccessible country of Tzanikê situated along the Akampsis (Chorokhi) valley.[41] In this connection we must remember that such a great specialist of the Caucasian history as V. Minorsky considered Procopius’ "Rhomaioi who are called Pontikoi"[42] as "certainly Laz",[43] who saved their national identity when the great Lazian state in the Caucasus had been forgotten. A. Bryer also underlines that it was only the anatolianized Lazi of the sixth century who had survived in Lazistan, when Colchian Lazia was forgotten.[44]

 It is well-known that not only Procopius, but also other classical authors – Agathias, Ioannes Lydes, the author of the anonymous Periplus – identify the Lazi with the Colchians. This identification must be the reason why some authors are inclined to consider the Pontic Lazi as a population having migrated from the eastern crescent of the Black Sea or Colchis to the west and south towards the south-east Black Sea littoral or Pontus. They think that the Lazi and the Tzani had been moving continually south and west along the Black Sea coast and as transhumants left their name to areas far from their homeland. But these authors are not taking into account the information by Xenophon as of an eye-witness, namely that at the turn of the 5th and 4th centuries BC Trapezund and Cerasus were situated in the land of Colchians: "They… reached the sea at Trapezus, an inhabited Greek city on the Euxine Sea, a colony of the Sinopeans in the territory of Colchis. There they remained about thirty days in the villages of the Colchians, and from these as a base plundered Colchis... the Trapezuntians… took part in negotiations with the Greeks in behalf of the near-by Colchians, who dwelt for the most part on the plain, and from these people also the Greeks received hospitable gifts of oxen. And on the third day of their journey they reached Cerasus, a Greek city on the sea, being a colony planted by the Sinopeans in the territory of Colchis."[45]

 It seems that the Colchians of Pontus, or the Djani/Chani (by the Greek transcription "Tza­noi") were called the "Lazi" at the time when the great Caucasian state of Lazians existed on the traditional territory of Colchis, in the Rioni (or Phasis) valley basin. The Pontic Lazi (Djani/ Chani), which later were incorporated within the Byzantine Empire, and differed from the Colchian Lazi, or Megrelians, have retained the old name "Lazi" till today.

 The main geographical feature of Pontus is a range of mountains running above the sea from Colchis – north to the mouth of Djorokhi – at the east to Themiscyra (near the modern Terme/ Therme) in the west.[46] It seems possible to postulate also here, in the west end of the same Pontic area, the Colchian provenance of the second part of topo­nym Themiscyra (YemÛskèra). The woorrd skuri or noskiri in Colchian (Megrelo-Lazian) means a drained ground – gained from water[47] (cf. Lazian topo­ny­ms Mekeskiri and Mekeleskiri, both near Rize).[48] By Strabo, The­miscyra is well-watered plain, coursed by many streams and therefore being always moist and covered with grass.[49] By the way Christian Lazi lived from Trapezund (Trabzon) till Platana (mo­dern Akçaabat) to the west and from Trapezund till Gümüşhane to the south even at the end of 19th century.[50]

 The evidence confirming a wide settlement of the Colchian Lazi from Dioscuria till the Trapezund area could be found in the Geography of Ananias of Širak of the 7th century:[51] "…Colchis, which is Egr… is divided into four small lands: Gŕ, Manwil, [Egŕewikë] which is Eger Proper where the River Phasis [is found] by the town of the same name, and Čaniw which is Xałtik’ where the River Megałupotamia [near Ardaşen – modern Büyük Dere] [is found]. It has other rivers [such us] the Acampsis or *Voh, which has its source in Greater Armenia. It has five cities: Igani, Cotais, Rhodopolis, Athenae, and Rhizus and several other emporia or maritime cities such as Trebizond." The spe­cialists assume, that the author is probably thinking of these towns as lying in the territory inhabited by the Colchians rather than being under their control.

 The inhabitants of Pontus were of course descendants not only of the Colchians, but also of related with them other Hellenized and non-Hellenized population of the south-eastern Black Sea littoral: Chalybes/Chalds, Makrones, Mos­synoeci­ans, Drills, Tibarenians, Sanns, Hep­taco­me­teans, Byzeres. The main area of the Tzani habitat coincides with the location of the Sanns and Makrones – they all lived at different times in the central part of the Pontic Alps, known by the modern Turkish topographical nomenclature as Gümüşane Dağları or as theme Chaldia of the Byzantine time. It is remarkable that all these tribes were related with each other. By Procopius "the Tzanic nation, subject to no one, called Sanoi in early times…".[52] We can trace iden­tification of the Sanns (S‹noi, soènoi) back to Strabo’s "Geography", which tells the following: "above Trapezus and Pharnacia are situated the Tibarani and Chaldaei and Sanni, in earlier times called Macrones, and Lesser Armenia...".[53] Ste­phen of Byzantium pointed out as well that the Tzani are the ancient Makrones. These equations give us possibility to consider the Tzani (or Djani/Chani) as a descendants of the Makrones. In § 29 of the same chapter of his book Strabo mentions only the first two ones, excluding the Sanni: "the Tibareni and Chaldaei, extending as far as Colchis." Strabo’s infor­mation that the Chaldaei were extending as far as Colchis, together with § 28, where above the region of Pharnacia and Trapezund again only the Tibarenians and the Chaldaeans are mentioned, different from § 18, must pointed out that Sanni, in the last two paragraphs of his text, are meant by Chaldaei.

 Once again we have a coincidence of the above ethnonyms with the name of Chaldeans and their country – Chaldia. Today among the natives of littoral this name only suggests "the people on the other side of the mountains," and has a mildly pejorative tone; a number of Trapezundine villages are still called "Halt." It was noticed that something of the intense localism of Pontus could perhaps be glimpsed in the very name of the thema of Chaldia from the 9th century.[54] At the same time, Chaldea is an old and general name of the land of the Lazians; it not only gave an administrative expression to the local identity, but also was definitely settled by the local population, the Lazi. In

 

the tenth century the Arab geographer Abul Feda regarded Trebizond as being largely a Lazian port. Byzantine authors, such as Pachymeres, and to some extent Trapezundines such as Lazaropoulos and Bessarion, regarded the Trapezundian Empire as being no more than a Lazian border state.[55]

 The name "Chaldea" has nothing in common with the name of the Urartian sun-god "Haldi" nor with Urartian own name for themselves, which, as A. Bryer and D. Winfield erroneously thought, was the same.[56] Actually the Urartians called their country "Biainli" and not "Haldi". At the same time, in the cuneiform inscription of the Urartian king Rusa II from Adiljevaz, dedicated to the events of 676 BC, Xalitu is mentioned, foreign for the Urartians country.[57] As to some scholars, this country is identical with the much later Pontic country, Xaltik.[58] In accordance with the 7th century text of the "Geography" of Ananias of Širak and the 8th century text of the "History of Armenians" of Movses Xorenac'i, Xaltik’ (Chaldea) appears to be the same as Ča­nik/Čaniw. In the opinion of G. Giorgadze, the Kaškaean toponym Khalila, with the root Khali and suffix -la, could be connected with Xalitu and Chalybes.[59]

 The tribes residing in the eastern part of Northern Anatolia (i.e. south-eastern part of the Black Sea littoral) – the Mossynoecians, Makrones, Tibarenians and Leucosyrians as well as the Chalybes or Chalds – are often considered by scholars as an ancient aboriginal population of Anatolia where they preserved from the pre-Hittite times. A. Bryer and D. Winfield consider Makrones and other tribes of the south Black Sea littoral listed by Herodotus together with them as the Proto-Georgian Pontic groups which survived the demise of Urartu.[60] Although there is sufficient data to identify the Chalybes or the Chaldeans – by the information of Strabo, the Chaldeans are the same as the Chalybeans.[61]

 In accordance with the above mentioned data of the Armenian sources of Ananias of Širak and Moses Khorenats'i, Čanik appears to be the same as Khaltik (Chaldea). Moses informs that: "the latter [Tacitus] was killed by his own [troops] in Chaniuk’ in Pontus, that is Khaļtik’".[62] Therefore we can assume that the Chalybes, the ancestors of the Chaldeans were also the ancestors of the descendants of the Chaldeans, the Djani/Chani who lived later in the same south-eastern part of the Black Sea littoral.

 The main area of the location of one of the oldest Pontic tribes, the Makrones, known already to Hecataeus and Herodotes, is fixed at Xenophon’s time in the central part of the Pontic Alps where he passed together with his soldiers in the turn of the 5th and 4th centuries BC. At that time the Makrones lived between the mountain of Theches (immediately after first sighting the sea) and Colchians of the Trapezund area.[63] Nearly in the same place an old site Kromni (modern Turkish Kurum Kale) is situated, the centre of the 19th century cripto-Christians who played an important role in the latest history of Pontus. It is possible that the root of the ethnonym "Makroni" to be Kroni or Kromni; ma-, mo- is well-known Kartvelian prefix which forms the terms of the descentments and ethnonyms from the place names and nouns (e.g. Egr-isi/toponym/ < M-egr-eli/ethnonym/, Argweti < Margweli, Tbeti < Mtbevari etc.).

 The same prefix seems to be present in the name "Mossynoekoi" (Mossænoikoi), who, by the opinion of Strabo, lived in trees or turrets; and it was on this account that the ancients called them "Mossynoecians," the turrets being called "mosyni".[64] In connection with this name it seems possible to recall the Kartvelian name for a little house "senaki" and its derivative mo-senake, with the meaning of "somebody living in such house". Cf. Georgian saxli, "house," and mo-saxle, "lodger".

 The great number of the ethnonyms typical of the large part of Pontus of the classical period should indicate the primitive tribal level of the social organization, noticed already by Xenophon and afterward by Arrian. In this connection it is appropriate to recall A. Bryer’s and D. Winfield’s observation that "on the eastern shores of Trebizond… settlement… begins to thin out and hug the coast. It increasingly follows the Caucasian pattern, making the identification of names peculiarly tricky. Area names may be associated with a people rather than a place… each had an intense feeling of localism. But some area names became localized, fixing upon a place. Often in postmedieval times, and usually upon an administrative center…".[65]

 Having in mind the above cited view-point about the disconnected patches of the Synopean and Trapezundian states on the Pontic sea-shore, and looking retrospectively, we could assume that the information about the settlement of the Leuco-Syrians or Cappadocians, i.e. the population of the Central Anatolian provenance, in the western part of the sea-shore Pontus, was connected with their expansion from the interior using the same vulnerable stretches. Perhaps analogous events were a reason for the contradiction of reports about the different areas of settlement of the Chalybes known already by Strabo. By the way the name "Chalybia" survived on maps as a thirteenth-century district, and a fourteenth-century client emirate, of the Empire of Trebizond.[66]

 The information of the historian of the first half of the 4th century BC, Ephores, preserved in the "Geography" of Strabo,[67] is possible that was connected with the problem of the earlier residence of the Chalybes. Ephores defined the location of the Chalybes within the peninsula of Asia Minor, i.e. west from the line of connection of Sinope with Issos (on the north-eastern littoral of the nowadays Gulf of Iskanderun). We must have in mind the south-easternmost point of the Gulf of Sinope and the most north-eastern point of the Gulf of Issos.[68]

 There existed also another way to define the limits of the peninsula of Asia Minor which, in Strabo's opinion, was more correct – namely across the neck of the land which is located between Amissos and Issos.[69] By the statement of Strabo, nobody considers the isthmus line of the peninsula as crossing the territory of the Chalybs because otherwise the line would not be a straight but a curved one – passing through Armenia Minor, the Euphrates, the whole Cappadocia, Commagene, as well as the Mountain of Amanus, would also include the Gulf of Issos, and if we consider the land of Chalybes as a part of the peninsula, then there would be more chances to attribute to it Cataonia, both Cappadocias and Lycaonia.[70]

Apparently, Ephores, in contrast to Strabo, considered the Chalybes as residents of the peninsula and did not attribute to them the above-mentioned countries because he had defined the location of the Chalybes in the more western areas in comparison with those countries.

 It is evident that Strabo did not consider the Chalybes as inhabitants of the peninsula because he defined their location to the east, outside from the peninsula. But the main reason why he could not agree with Ephores was not the fact of removal of the Chalybes from the seashore and their settlement inside of the country, as some scholars used to think, but in their location west from the line which connected the Issos with the Pontus Euxinus. Strabo did not exclude the residence of the Chalybes in the inner part of the country because it is quite obvious from his statement that it would be more correct if Ephores would have placed part of the Chalybes on the seashore, and another part inside of the country.[71]

 It is worthwhile to state that by the data of the Perieges of Pseudo-Scymnus, the location of the Chalybes is also defined on the peninsula, west from the narrowest isthmus of Asia (i.e. Asia Minor), between the Gulfs of Amissos and Issos, inside the country and not far from Cappadocia.[72] The information of Pseudo-Scymnus is of special importance for the elucidation of the location of the Chalybes who were mentioned by Ephores because one of the main sources of the "Perieges" was exactly Ephores. This fact was remarked by Pseudo Scymnus himself when he enumerated the authors whose works he used for his writings.[73]

 By the information of Pomponius Mela who had profound knowledge of Asia Minor, the towns Amissos and Sinope, the rivers Halis and Termodont belonged to the Chalybes who lived nearest to Paphlagonia.[74] These data of Mela also indicates the existence of the Chalybes who lived farther from Paphlagonia. It is known that in Mela's writings we can meet a great number of information which reflects more ancient periods. The more widespread distribution of the Chalybes at earlier times is apparently confirmed by the statement of Apollonius of Rhodes, namely that the destiny of Polithemus was to die in the vast lands or Chalybes.[75]

 The scientists discuss the problem if the Chalybes, mentioned by Herodotus, were among the tribes who lived west from the river Halis (modern Kızıl Irmak). There are two such paragraphs in his "History" – I, 28 and VII, 76. In the first case some scholars suppose, that the part of the paragraph in which such tribes were cited, was inserted later. In the second case, preference is given to the restoration of the name of Pisidians.

 It is a fact that Herodotus did not mention the Chalybes when he enumerated the tribes who lived beside them in the southern part of the Black Sea littoral – the Tibarenians, Macrones, Mosynoecians, Moschs, etc. At the same time it is very difficult to imagine that Herodotus had no information about the Chalybes. Already Hecataeus and Eschyles informed us about them; and, as Strabo stressed, the Chalybeans had been mentioned even by Homer under the name of Halidzoneans or Alibeans who had considered them as the inhabitants of the "Land of Alibe".[76]

 Presumably Herodotus did not mention the Chalybeans when he enumerated the neighbouring tribes because the fragments in which these tribes were named[77] issued from two peculiar parts of his "History" – the "List of the satrapies or the tribes who paid the tribute to Darius" and the "List of the army (and fleet) of Xerxes", which, on their part, apparently were derived from the official Persian documents. In the other context, if the information would be given by Herodotus himself, he could have mentioned also the Chalybes. It is quite possible that in these fragments the Chalybes were united with other tribes, therefore they were not mentioned separately, or they were cited by another name.

 In both these Lists,[78] together with the Tibareni, Macrones and Mossynoeci (also in the List of satrapies the Mares are mentioned) the Moschs are mentioned instead of the Chalybes, what could be more expected in this context. In the List of army they replace the Chalybes who are mainly cited together with the Tibareni and had together with them one commander. All these tribes were equipped like the Moschs.[79] As the mentioning of the Moschs together with these Pontic tribes were quite unexpected (the ethno-political situation of this area of the turn of 5th – 4th centuries BC is well-known from Xenophon’s "Anabasis"), it seems that the Chalybes were cited under their (Moschs) name in the Achae­menedian documents.

 Perhaps the identification of the Chalybes with the Moschs could explain the above information about the settlement of Chalybes on the peninsula of Asia Minor. I have in mind the fact that the Moschs obviously lived there by the information of Hecataeus of Miletus whose two excerpts among others were retained by Stephanus of Byzanz. The conjunction of the first fragment that the Moschs are a Colchian tribe who lived near Matienians[80] with another fragment about the location of the Matienians town Hiope in the neighbourhood of Gordies and about the Paphlagonian type of the clothes of the population of this town,[81] makes clear that in the above-mentioned Matienians western Matienians were implied who lived near the Phrygians of the city of Gordion and near the Paphlagonians. Therefore, it is possible to localize the Moschs in the neighbourhood of western Matieniens, in Cappadocia, somewhere in the north-easternmost part of the peninsula.[82]

 The Hecateus’ definition of the Moschs as a Colchian tribe is a remarkable fact because at that time, as we see above, they were included together with other Pontic tribes in the same, nineteenth Achaemenedian satrapy, while the Colchians were in reality independent from Iranians. The gifts and not tribute were required of the Colchians.[83] This fact also means that Herodotes’ "Moschs" were not in the neighbourhood of Colchis, where, in the vicinity, Strabo’s "Moschike"< was located who informs us even that one part of the Moschian land was included inside of Colchis.[84]

 The Cappadocian location of Moschs is not unusual fact in the classical and early medieval li­terature. Josephus Flavius considered the Moschs, as well as the Iberians, as being of Anatolian origin. In his commentary to the biblical "Meshech" he wrote that the Mosocheans were derived from Meshech and that they afterwards received the name of "Cappadocians", though from the designation of their capital "Mazaca", it is obvious that the name of all their tribes was the same. In the Byzantine historiography, Cap­padocians were the same as the Meschs (Moschs).[85]

 The first reliable written data about the ancestors of the Moschs, the Mušks, belong to the Assyrian-Urartian cuneiform inscriptions. By the Middle Assyrian inscription of Tiglath-Pilesar I the land of Alzi, alias Enzi/Enzite, as same as Sophe­ne, on the lower stream of the Murat (Eas­tern Euph­rates), and the land of Kadmuhi, in the valley of the upper Tigris, were occupied by the Muški in 1164 BC. The ethnonym "Muški" of the Assyrian-

Urartian inscriptions corresponds, from the phonetical point of view, to "Moschi" of the Greek sources.[86]

 When, 20-25 years ago the territory where Alzi was located, was thoroughly studied by Keban dam expedition, the cultural attribution of Muški become possible. According to ar­chaeologists the Early Iron age pottery discovered there, in the Elâzığ region, and which must be attributed to the Muški, has no connection at all with the western Anatolian homeland of the Phrygians and reveals traits typical of the materials of Transcaucasia and the regions located south of it.[87]

 There is also one more region where the names Chalybes and Moschi are possibly interchangeable. I have in mind the information by Xenophon about the Chalybes who lived near the Apsaros River or Chorokhi, and by Strabo about the province of Carenitida on the upper flow of the Kara-su (near Erzerum) which was conquered by the Armenians from the Chalybes in the first part of the 2nd century BC.[88] Such a localization of the Chalybes gives a possibility to identify them with the Moschs. As it is known the territory between the upper flow of the Kara-su and Chorokhi is considered as a place where the southern part of the Moschian mountains were situated. The Georgian tribe of the Meschs (or Moschs) lived there – between Erzurum, Kars and Batumi at the classical and medieval times. The Meschetian province of Tao was extending southwards as far as the source of the Euphrates. On the right bank of the upper flow of the Dumlu-su (which flows to the south from the Dumlu Dağ), the source stream of the Kara-su (the Northern Euphrates), is located the well-known medieval place Gurci Boğaz – the Geor­gian Pass. The territories in the north of it were considered by the Turks as Georgian (and after the sixteenth century as former Georgian) lands.

 This ethnonym, "Moschi", is not the only term used to designat the Chalybes in the classical sources. In this connection we must also take into account the information of another work of Xenophons – "Cyropaedia". As to it, the Chalds lived in the mountains, in the neighbourhood of the Western Armenians, and the latter apparently took away from them the fertile lands.[89] By the above cited information of Stra­bo, the Chaldeans are the same as the Chalybes.[90] Strabo also informs us that Carenitida, the region of the upper flow of the Kara-su (Northern Euphrates), had been conquered by the Armenians from the Chalybes.[91] This event is dated to the first half of the 2nd century BC – i.e., later than Xenophon's expe­dition. By the data of Xenophon's "Anabasis", the land of Chalybes and Armenia are evidently quite in contrast with each other;[92] as to an elder of one of West Armenian villages the neighbouring country, next to the route of Greeks, belonged to the Chalybes.[93]

 At the same time, quite a clear and strong Colchian (Megrelo-Lazian) substratum of the Armenian language indicates linguistic connections in the much earlier period. Perhaps the above mentioned Chalds, inhabitants of the southern part of the Chalybean-Chaldean area, were responsible for such Armenian-Colchian linguistic parallels. Therefore it seems possible to consider the Chalds, mentioned in the "Cyropaedia", as the southern part of the Chalybes of the "Anabasis" whose territory was conquered by the Armenians before Xenophon’s times and the Chalybes mentioned in the "Anabasis" – i.e. the population of Carenitida – the northern part of the same East Anatolian Chalybean-Chaldian area which, as it was stated already, was later conquered by the Armenians.[94]

 It seems possible that the ethnonym Haik, as the Armenians called themselves, was derived from the designation of Chalds/Chalybes, containing the root Chal, and maybe was a result of the alteration of the sounds l and i. The difference of the sounds of the initial phoneme kh and h is not of great importance; it is well known that the term Haik is considered in the literature as formed from the name of the countries – Khaiasa and Khate. The alteration of the phonems l and i permits us to connect the designation of Chalybes with the name of the "Land of Khaiasa". On the other hand, it is possible that the ethnonym Coites used for the designation of the Chalybes of the Black Sea littoral, was connected with the name of the Hittites – Khate.

 The difficulties of the interpretation of old Pontic names was noticed by E. Janssens who wrote that: "in the absence of precise details and of traditional indications worthy of credence, we admit that the non-Greek population called to furnish the anonymous mass of mountaineers of the Trebizondine hinterland are of Caucasian origin, and

that they are called Kolchians when one archaizes, Laz when one adopts a contemporary perspective (which is the case from Procopius until the present day), or Khalybes when one alludes to the traditional mining and metallurgy of the population. Such were likely the three orders of generalization adhered to at the end of antiquity by the authors whose indications we have been obliged to follow".[95]

 It must be also taken into account that Palaiphatus of Abidus informs us about the settlement of the Moschs, together with the Charimates, in the neighbourhood with the Cercetae and that the Parthenius till the Pontus (the Black Sea) belonged to them. The Parthenius, as we know from the Periplus of Arrian,[96] is the modern river Koca Irmak, located near the border of ancient Paphlagonia, and not Pordanis/Prytanis, mentioned by Ps. Scylax[97] and Arrian,[98] in the easternmost part of Pontus. But the neighbourhood of the Cercetae in the same context means that there the Central Anatolian homeland of the Moschs is mixed with the quite unexpectable information about their settlement in Northern Colchis together with the Cercetae and known from the excerpt of Hellanicus of Mithelene (who lived one century before Palephates – in the 5th century BC) that "above Cercetai live Moschs and Charimatai, below Heniochoi, above [them] Coraxi".[99] It must be also taken into consideration that Hellanicus was the author of the work about tribes of the northern, and not Pontic southern, littoral.

 Such a location of the Moschs is strengthened by the authority of Strabo who defined their settlement between the Cercetae and Colchians because of the data by the historians of Mithridatic wars.[100] But we must take into account that, on the other hand, by the information of Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax, in the same territory of the north-eastern Black Sea littoral the following tribes lived from the north-west to the south-east: Cercetae, Toretes, Achaiae, Heniochoi, Coraxes, Colles, Melanch­laenies, Gelonies and Colchians.[101]

 It can be easily noticed that instead of the Moschs of Strabo in the Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax, several tribes are mentioned – Toretes, Achaeans, Heniocheans, Coraxes, Melanchlae­nies and Gelonies. In one of these tribes it is possible to detect Strabo's Moschs. By the same fragment of Strabo we are also informed that above the Cercetae, Moschs and Colchians, the Pteriophagi (i.e. the lice-eaters) and Soanes lived. On the other hand, Flavius Arrian informs us in his Periplus that the Scythian tribe of "lice-eaters" at earlier times lived west of Pitius and that this tribe was mentioned by Herodotus in the description of the "Land of Scythians".[102] Herodotus, for his part, considers the tribe of Budini as "lice-eaters", who, in his opinion, were erroneously taken by the Greeks as Gelonies.[103]

 In the light of Herodotus and Flavius Arrians data, it is obvious that the Gelonies, mentioned by Pseudo-Scylax as neighbours of the Melanchlaenies and Colchians, correspond to Strabo's Pteriophages who lived above the Cercetae, Moschs and Colchians (i.e. in the mountains). This coincidence makes possible to identify also their neighbours, the Melanchlaenies with the Moschs.

 By the data of Hecataeus,[104] Herodotus[105] and after them other Classical writers, the Melanchlaenies got this name because they had "black coats". In Greek m¡l�w, m¡laina, m¡l�n means "black", "of the black colour". The same meaning in the Svanian language of the Kartvelian linguistic family has the word "meshkhe". The hissing consonant (sh) in Greek is transmitted as the sibilant (s).

 Consequently, we have no reason to speak about the residence of the Moschs/Meschs as being in the territory of Abkhazia. As for the ethnonym "Moschi", used by Strabo, following the historians of Mithridatic wars, it gives us the possibility to localize the Svanian-speaking tribes (Strabo's "Soanes") in the neighbourhood of the Melanchlaeni whose name was probably preserved in Strabo's "Geography" in the Svanian form.

 What concerns the ethnonym Moschi/Meschi, it is remarkable that this name is connected by some authors with a name of the old capital of Iberia – Mtskheta. In any case, there can be little doubt that the population who settled in Mtskheta and its outskirts were the bearers of the Hittite-Anatolian cultural traditions. According to the scholars, the old Georgian gods of Mtskheta like Armazi, Zadeni, Gatsi and Ga correspond to the

 

 

 

Anatolian deities: Arma, Santa, Atis and Kibela.[106]

 As to some Georgian archaeologists, the active settlement of a new population, the bearers of the Hittite-Asia Minor traditions, probably the Meschs, in the territory of the Central Transcaucasia, had already begun in the second part of the fourth century BC, and this fact caused the spread of a new type of culture in Eastern Georgia which was quite different from the local Late Bronze – Early Iron age traditions.[107]

 It is interesting that the information of oldest Georgian chronicle, presumably of the seventh century, the "Christening of Kartli (Iberia)", the statehood in Iberia was created by the Georgians migrated from their old homeland, Arian-Kartli, tentatively located to the south-west from modern Georgia, and that this fact took place with the help of Alexander the Great. No other episode is known from the sources about the subjection of Iberia to western or south-western Georgian political organisations except the information by Menander the Guardsman of the late sixth century, namely that Iberia, alike Suania (Svaneti), was subject to Lazica[108] and the indication of Jordanes (the first part of sixth century), that in his time the Caspian Gates were guarded by the tribe of the Lazi as a Roman fortification[109] – the witness of still inestimable activities of Lazians during the interregnum period of Eastern Georgia (perhaps somehow connected with the problem of the Tsanarians).

 According to "History of Armenians" of Movses Khorenats’i, Alexander the Great took with him Mihrdat, one of the satraps of Darius and left him as a prince over the captives from among the Iberian people whom Nebukhadnezzar had taken as prisoners and settled on the right side of the Pontus Sea after having attacked the land of the Lybians and Iberians.

 There is no doubt that above-mentioned Mihrdates represents a member of the Pontic dynasty of the Mithridatians. The information concerning the resettlement of the population from Africa (Lybia) and the Iberian peninsula (Western Iberia) by the Babylonian king Nebukhadnezzar II, of the early sixth century BC, was ascribed to the historian Megastenes already at the Classical times. It is worthwhile to remark that Megastenes lived in the late fourth – early third centuries BC; thus the information about the migration of Moschs to the Caucasus, if such event really took place, must be dated earlier than the period of the reign of Alexander the Great.

 It is very well known that Alexander himself never marched towards the Caucasus, though Plinius[110] and Solinus[111] mentioned the supremacy of the Macedonians in Iberia.

 At the same time, the information of the Georgian and Armenian chronicles about the participation of Alexander the Great in Caucasian affairs must find some coincidence in Flavius Arrians "Campaign of Alexander".

 According to Flavius Arrian, in 329-328 BC, the king of the Central Asian Chorasmeans, Pharasmanes, escorted by 1500 horsemens, appeared before Alexander the Great who stayed at that time on the bank of the Central Asian river Oxus (modern Amu-Daria); he told Alexander that he lived in neighbourhood of the Colchians and Amazons and offered to accompany him and to get the supply for his campaign if Alexander wished to conquer the tribes who lived in the region extended to the Pontus Euxinus (i.e. the Black Sea). Alexander replied to the king of the Chorasmeans that he had no time now to begin a campaign to Pontus, but after the conquest of Asia and his return through the Hellespontus and Propontidis to Greece, he would break profoundly into Pontus with the help of all his forces, both marine and military ones and only then he would accept Pharasmanes' help.[112]

 The historiographical literature contains quite a competent remark, namely that it is incredible that the author of "Peripluses of the Black Sea", Flavius Arrian, thought the residence of Colchians to be in Central Asia, in the neighbourhood of Chorasmeans and not in the environment of Trapezund on the Black Sea. Some scholars think that this error appeared in the Greek manuscripts because it is difficult to imagine the king of Central Asian Chorasmeans to be mentioned in the original text together with the Colchians;[113] others consider that Arrian left Pharasmanes’ statement without comment, because he seems was unwilling to undermine the credibility of this information which was coming from a primary, contemporary source, perhaps from Aristobulus, or from Ptolemy, or to speculate what might have been at the basis of this claim.[114] As A. Bosworth pointed

out, the author of the primary report, who in his opinion was undoubtedly contemporary of this event, had no illusions about Alexander’s ambition of conquest around the Black Sea and it seems that this enterprise might have referred to the plans formulated in 328 BC.[115]

That the text by Arrian concerns the Pontic region and not Central Asia, beside the fact that it refers to Colchians, Amazons and Pontus Euxinus, can to some degree be stated by Alexander the Great's words, that he would go towards the Pontus after his return to Greece through the Hellespontus and Propontidis (i.e. after his return from Central Asia) using land – as well as marine forces. This last remark makes clear that he was not about to return to Central Asia.

If, on the one hand, the king of Chorasmeans, Pharasmanes, mentioned by Arrian, expected Alexander's help against his neighbours – the Colchians and the Amazons – on the other hand, according to the Georgian and Armenian chronicles, Alexander the Great assigned his follower as a ruler after his arrival to Iberia.

 It is interesting to recall the fact mentioned by Strabo, that Alexander sent Menon with an army to the Sispiridis[116] which by some investigators is identified with the region of Speri (modern İspir).

 I think exactly in the north-eastern parts of Anatolia not only Arian-Kartli mentioned in the Georgian chronicles should be searched, but also the country of Pharasmanes, the enemy of the Colchians and the Amazons. The name of this country presumably was mixed up with the designation of the country in Central Asia – "Chorasmii". Also here, as in the above instances, we have presumably a similar phenomenon – a wrong use of an ethnonym.

 In connection with the problem concerned, we must pay attention to Strabo's above information that by Artaxias (the Armenian king Artashes I) and Zariadr (the Armenian military leader Zareh) Armenian lands were enlarged by cutting off from the Iberians beside the Gogarene, the slopes of Pariadres mountains and Chorzene.[117] This event can be dated to the second century BC.

 Chorzene, apparently included the old Georgian provinces Tao-Klarjeti and Kola-Artaani and was located in the area of the Moschian mountains, the central part of which is the mountaneous ridge of Arsiani (modern Yalnizçam Dağlari), mentioned as the mountain of Chorziani in the "Life of St. Grigoli of Khantza" by Giorgi Merchule of the tenth century.

So we can assume that in Flavius Arrian's "Campaign of Alexander" under the name of the Chorasmeans king Pharasmanes, the ruler of the Iberian province of Chorzene should be detected and that the information by the Georgian chronicles about the son of the king of Arian-Kartli, Azo, who became king in Mtzkheta because of the help of Alexander the Great, with the information by Flavius Arrian in a certain way is connected.

It was thought that the anthroponym "Azo" of the Georgian chronicles had the meaning of a personification of the country of Azzi, of the Hittite times,[118] situated by the opinion of some scholars in the territory of later Diaukhi. In this connection it is worthwhile to say that the name "Azo" reveals a similarity with the name of the king of Dayaeni (i.e. Urartian Diaukhi), Asia, mentioned in the inscription of the Assyrian king, Shalmanasar III, which was dated to 844 BC.[119]

 The land of Dayaene/Diaukhi was located to the north of the source of the Kara-su (Western Euphrates) in the territory which is known from Georgian and Armenian literary sources as Tao or Taik. It seems somewhere nearby Khaiasa of Hittite inscriptions was located. I should not wonder if in the names Dayaene and Khaiasa is hidden one and the same name connected with the mythical country of Aia (or the capital of Ayetes, the king of Colchis). The shrinkage of initial consonants D, T, K and X is characteristic for ancient ethno-toponyms of the East Anatolian-Caucasian area.[120]

 An additional information from the point of view of the location of Dayaene/Diaukhi may be provided by the name of the royal city of Diaukhi – Šašilu[121] – which possibly was situated on the place of the Medieval Georgian village of Sasire (immediately west from the castles of the Tortumi and Okale), on the upper flow of Tortumis-tskali (modern Turkish Tortum-çai), ca. 15 km north-west of the source of the Euphrates (Dumlu-su). It must be taken into account that by the Assyrian cuneiform inscription, which was taken over in Urartian, it is impossible to distinguish from each other the sounds š and s, l and r, u and o.[122] Such a location of Šašilu seems quite reasonable if we will correlate the fact mentioned in the above in

scription of Shalmanasar III that he erected his statue in the anonymous city of Asia when the latter came to him to the source of the Euphrates and "fell before his feet" with the information of the Urartian king Menua that nearly after half a century of this fact he destroyed the royal city of Diaukhi, mentioned by the name Šašilu.

 From the point of view of the interpretation of the name Arian-Kartli (supposedly Kartli of Aryans or Iranians),[123] the problem of inhabitation of the Hesperitaeans is a crucial one, because on the base of their location, by some scholars, in Speri (İspir), on the upper flow of Chorokhi (Choruh), the Achaemenian empire is thought to be spread there at the beginning of 4th century BC.[124]

 It is well-known, that in the final part of Xenophons "Anabasis" only such countries and tribes were enumerated which, in accordance with the basic text, were on the route of Greeks. Among others there is mentioned an ethnonym Hesperitae.[125]

 I think the fact must be taken into consideration that at the time of the identification of the Hesperitaeans and the definition of their location, Tiribas, mentioned in the final part of the "Anabasis" as a governor of the Phasianoians and the Hesperitaeans, in accordance with the basic text, was the satrap of Western Armenia.[126] Thus in the final part of the "Anabasis", the main function of Tiribas – that of a ruler of Western Armenia – was changed to the task of a ruler of the Phasianoians and the Hesperitaeans and instead of the Armenians, subjects of Tiribas, whose country was situated on the route of Xenophons Greek companions, are mentioned Hesperitae.

 Consequently, the question is inevitable: Was the population of Western Armenia, mentioned in the basic part of "Anabasis", implied under the name of "Hesperitae" of the final part of the same text and not a population of Speri, of the upper flow of Chorokhi?

 The validity of such an assumption can be reinforced by the fact that the Greek word eJspevra means "west" and ¥sp¡riow/§sperow – "western". It is important to notice that Strabo used the term "Hesperitae of Lybia" to designate Western Lybians.[127] Therefore it seems quite possible that the term of the final part of the "Anabasis", Hesperitae („EsperÝtai)  or "inhabitants of west" was used for the designation of the Western Armenians, and this fact was apparently dictated by the wish to detach them from the Armenians who lived in the satrapy of East Armenia and the territory of which the Greeks passed, until they reached the land of the satrapy of Western Armenia.[128] In some cases easily are detectable the inclusion in ancient Greek texts of different forms of already used ethnonyms, to avoid their mixing with latters.

 Therefore we can approve that the final part of the "Anabasis" from the point of view of its contents is by no means contradictory to the main basic part. In a similar way in the Xenophon’s "Anabasis" for the distinguishing of the Chalybes, living at the Black Sea littoral from the Chalybes of the East Anatolian highlands, the ethnonym Coites was used.[129]

 Anyway, by the correlation of the data of the Greek and Roman authors with earlier Near Eastern epigraphical sources, it is possible to deduce that some Transcaucasian tribes of the Classical times were evidently descendents of the population who lived formerly in the regions situated more to the south-west – in the inner parts of Eastern and Central Anatolia. Apparently rising tides and ebb tides of the populations of the Transcaucasia and the southern Black Sea littoral, in connection with the inner regions of Anatolia, had been conditioned by the political situation of the latter.[130]

 

 

 

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