The Halizones are an obscure people that appear in Homer's Iliad

Iliad

The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...

 as allies of Troy during the Trojan War

Trojan War

In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad...

. Their leaders were Odius and Epistrophus

Epistrophus

In the Iliad, Epistrophus was the son of Iphitus and brother of Schedius. Together with his brother he led the Phocians on the side of the Achaeans in the Trojan War....

, said by Apollodorus

Apollodorus

Apollodorus of Athens son of Asclepiades, was a Greek scholar and grammarian. He was a pupil of Diogenes of Babylon, Panaetius the Stoic, and the grammarian Aristarchus of Samothrace...

 to be sons of a man named Mecisteus. According to Homer, the Halizones came from "Alybe far away, where is the birth-place of silver,..." Strabo

Strabo

Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...

 (in his Geography) speculates that "Alybe far away" may originally have read as "Chalybe far away", and he suggests that the Halizones may have been Chalybes

Chalybes

The Chalybes or Chaldoi were a tribe of proto-Georgians. Classical Antiquity credited with the invention of ferrous metallurgy....

, as well as Khaldi.

There has been much speculation since as to the origin of the name 'Halizones', with connections to both 'Amazons

Amazons

The Amazons are a nation of all-female warriors in Greek mythology and Classical antiquity. Herodotus placed them in a region bordering Scythia in Sarmatia...

' and the River Halys

Halys

Halys may refer to:* The Halys River in Anatolia , Turkish Kızılırmak .* In the Aeneid, Halys is a Trojan who defends Aeneas' camp from a Rutulian attack. He is killed by Turnus....

 both suggested. It is not even clear that the Halizones ever existed, or even if Homer knew they existed.

Homer's scholiast derived the name from hals, sea, explaining that they lived in a land surrounded by the sea. However he stated elsewhere that Odius was chief of the Paphlagonians. Herodotus (4.17, 52) placed the Halizones among the Scythians in the region of modern Vinnytsia

Vinnytsia

Vinnytsia is a city located on the banks of the Southern Bug, in central Ukraine. It is the administrative center of Vinnytsia Oblast.-Names:...

 Ukraine, while Ephorus

Ephorus

Ephorus or Ephoros , of Cyme in Aeolia, in Asia Minor, was an ancient Greek historian. Information on his biography is limited; he was the father of Demophilus, who followed in his footsteps as a historian, and to Plutarch's claim that Ephorus declined Alexander the Great's offer to join him on his...

, equating them with Amazons, located them near Cyme

Cyme (Aeolis)

Cyme was an Aeol city in Aeolis close to the kingdom of Lydia. The Aeolians regarded Cyme as the largest and most important of their twelve cities, which were located on the coastline of Asia Minor...

 in Asia Minor. A later scholiast to Homer calls them a Thracian tribe. Meanwhile, Pliny the Elder

Pliny the Elder

Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...

, Hecataeus of Miletus, Menecrates

Menecrates

Menecrates is the name of:*Menecrates of Ephesus, ancient Greek poet*Menecrates of Syracuse, physician to Philip of Macedon*Menecrates of Xanthus, ancient Greek historian*Menecrates , ancient Greek sculptor...

 of Elaea, and Palaephatus

Palaephatus

Palaephatus was the original author of a rationalizing text on Greek mythology, the work of paradoxography On Incredible Tales , which survives in a Byzantine edition....

 placed the Halizones or Alazones in Mysia

Mysia

Mysia was a region in the northwest of ancient Asia Minor or Anatolia . It was located on the south coast of the Sea of Marmara. It was bounded by Bithynia on the east, Phrygia on the southeast, Lydia on the south, Aeolis on the southwest, Troad on the west and by the Propontis on the north...

.