Heniochi


The Heniochi were an ancient tribe inhabiting northwest shores of Colchis and some say Phasis area. Their country was called Heniocheia.
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, to Trabzon. The first mentions of this people is contained in the cuneiform inscriptions found in Urartu, which date back to the 8th century BC.
Sources from the 5th to 4th century BC till the 1st century AD note the Heniokhs lived from modern Sochi till Pitiunt - Dioskuria. This may make them one of the oldest Abkhazian tribes.
The Abkhazian 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. Aristotle describes the Heniochi as a group of people "ready enough to kill and eat men."