{{Short description|Ancient Colchian tribe in Pontus}} {{Distinguish|text=the fish genus ''Sperata'' (syn. ''Macrones'')}}
[[File:Earlycaucasus655.jpg|thumb|right|400px|Macrones, occupying area around Trapezos marked as Macronia, next to Tibareni (Thybaraena)]] [[File:MapoftheVoyageoftheArgonauts Caucasus.jpg|upright=1.2|thumb|Macrones in a map of the voyage of the Argonauts by Abraham Ortelius, 1624]] The '''Macrones''' ({{lang-ka|მაკრონები}}, {{transliteration|ka|mak'ronebi}}; {{langx|grc|Μάκρωνες}}, ''Makrōnes'') were an ancient Colchian tribe in the east of Pontus, about the Moschian Mountains (mountains approximately south and east of modern Bayburt). The name is allegedly derived from the name of Kromni valley (Κορούμ, located {{cvt|13|km}} north-east of Gümüşhane) by adding Kartvelian ma- prefix which denotes regional descendant.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal| last=Kavtaradze|first=Giorgi Leon|date=2002|title=An Attempt to Interpret Some Anatolian and Caucasian Ethnonyms of the Classical Sources| url= http://www.geocities.ws/komblege/pontus.htm| journal=Sprache und Kultur|publisher=Staatliche Ilia Tschawtschawadse Universität Tbilisi für Sprache und Kultur. Institut zur Erforschung des westlichen Denkens| volume=3|pages=68–83|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20211113083134/http://www.geocities.ws/komblege/pontus.htm|archive-date=13 November 2021}}</ref>
== History == The Macrones are first mentioned by Herodotus (c. 450 BC), who relates that they, along with Moschi, Tibareni, Mossynoeci, and Marres, formed the nineteenth satrapy within the Achaemenid Persian Empire and fought under Xerxes I. There are many other subsequent references to them in the Classical accounts. Xenophon (430–355 BC) places them east of Trapezus (modern Trabzon, Turkey). They are described as a powerful and wild people wearing garments made of hair, and as using in war wooden helmets, small shields of wicker-work, and short lances with long points.<ref>Herodotus ii. 104, vii. 78; Xenophon ''Anabasis'' iv. 8. § 3, v. 5. § 18, vii. 8. § 25; compare Hecataeus ''Fragm.''{{ambiguous|reason=None of his works have a title that could be abbreviated thus. Cite a specific work, or a specific edition of his collected works|date=January 2024}} 191; Scylax, p. 33; Dionysius Periegetes 766; Apollonius of Rhodes ii. 22; Pliny the Elder (1st century AD) vi. 4; Josephus ''Contra Apionem'' i. § 22, who asserts that they observed the custom of circumcision).</ref> Strabo (xii.3.18) remarks, in passing, that the people formerly called Macrones bore in his day the name of Sanni, a claim supported also by Stephanus of Byzantium, though Pliny speaks of the Sanni and Macrones as two distinct peoples. By the 6th century they were known as the Tzanni ({{langx|grc|Τζάννοι}}). According to Procopius, the Byzantine emperor Justinian I subdued them in the 520s and converted them to Christianity.<ref>Procopius ''De Bello Persico''. i. 15, ''De Bello Gothico''. iv. 2, ''De Aedificiis'' iii. 6.</ref> They participated in the Lazic War fighting under the Byzantine command.
The Macrones are identified by modern scholars as one of the proto-Georgian tribes<ref name="Suny">Suny, Ronald Grigor (1994), ''The Making of the Georgian Nation'' (2nd ed.), p. 8. Indiana University Press, {{ISBN|0-253-20915-3}}</ref> whose presence in Northeastern Anatolia might have preceded the Hittite period, and who survived the demise of Urartu.<ref>{{cite book |title= The Byzantine Monuments and Topography of the Pontos |last1= Bryer |first1= A. |last2= Winfield |first2= D. |year= 1985 |page= 300 |publisher= DOS 20 |location= Washington, DC}} Cited in: Kavtaradze (2002), pp. 63–83.</ref> They are frequently regarded as the possible ancestors of the Mingrelians and Laz people (cf. {{lang|xmf|margal}}, a Mingrelian self-designation).<ref name=":0" />
The Macrones lived along the border with the Machelonoi, another "Sannic" tribe evidently closely related to the Macrones.<ref>{{cite journal |title= The Vale of Kola: A Final Preliminary Report on the Marchlands of Northeast Turkey |last= Edwards |first= Robert W. |journal= Dumbarton Oaks Papers |year= 1988 |volume= 42 |page= 130}}</ref>
== References == {{Reflist}} {{DGRA}}
{{Ancient Georgians}}
Category:Ancient peoples of Anatolia Category:Ancient peoples of Georgia (country) Category:Laz people Category:Tribes described primarily by Herodotus Category:Anabasis (Xenophon)
{{Georgia-hist-stub}}