The Machelones were a Colchian

Colchis

In ancient geography, Colchis or Kolkhis was an ancient Georgian state kingdom and region in Western Georgia, which played an important role in the ethnic and cultural formation of the Georgian nation.The Kingdom of Colchis contributed significantly to the development of medieval Georgian...

 tribe located to the far south of the Phasis (modern-day Rioni River

Rioni River

The Rioni or Rion River is the main river of western Georgia. It originates in the Caucasus Mountains, in the region of Racha and flows west to the Black Sea, entering it north of the city of Poti...

, western Georgia

Georgia (country)

Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...

). There are several references to them in Classical

Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...

 sources. This group may be the Machorones of Pliny

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...

 (NH 6.4.11) who placed them between the Ophis (modern Of, Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

) and Prytanis rivers.

The 1st century AD writer Lucian

Lucian

Lucian of Samosata was a rhetorician and satirist who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature.His ethnicity is disputed and is attributed as Assyrian according to Frye and Parpola, and Syrian according to Joseph....

 also comments about the Machlyai and their ruler, but the account seems to be entirely fictional. Ptolemy

Ptolemy

Claudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...

, in the early 2nd century AD, mentions the town of Mechlessos on the border of Colchis, but adds nothing substantive. His contemporary author, Arrian

Arrian

Lucius Flavius Arrianus 'Xenophon , known in English as Arrian , and Arrian of Nicomedia, was a Roman historian, public servant, a military commander and a philosopher of the 2nd-century Roman period...

, lists on a west to east orientation the Sannoi

Laz people

The Laz are an ethnic group native to the Black Sea coastal regions of Turkey and Georgia...

, Drilae, Machelonoi, Heniochoi, Zudreitai, and Lazoi

Laz people

The Laz are an ethnic group native to the Black Sea coastal regions of Turkey and Georgia...

 (Perip. 1 1.1-2). Writing in the early 3rd century about an event a hundred years earlier (AD 117), Dio Cassius

Dio Cassius

Lucius Cassius Dio Cocceianus , known in English as Cassius Dio, Dio Cassius, or Dio was a Roman consul and a noted historian writing in Greek...

 (68.19) relates that the Machelonoi and the neighboring Heniochoi were ruled by a single "king", Anchialos, who submitted to the Roman emperor Trajan

Trajan

Trajan , was Roman Emperor from 98 to 117 AD. Born into a non-patrician family in the province of Hispania Baetica, in Spain Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Domitian. Serving as a legatus legionis in Hispania Tarraconensis, in Spain, in 89 Trajan supported the emperor against...

. There is a special mention in the anonymous (probably post-4th century) Periplus Ponti Evcines that both the Machelones and Heniochoi were once called Ekcheireis. The country called Machelonia, a client state

Client state

Client state is one of several terms used to describe the economic, political and/or military subordination of one state to a more powerful state in international affairs...

 of the Sassanid Persian Empire, figures in the so-called Res Gestae Divi Saporis (Ka'ba-i Zartosht), the mid-3rd-century AD trilingual inscription concerning the political, military, and religious activities of Shapur I

Shapur I

Shapur I or also known as Shapur I the Great was the second Sassanid King of the Second Persian Empire. The dates of his reign are commonly given as 240/42 - 270/72, but it is likely that he also reigned as co-regent prior to his father's death in 242 .-Early years:Shapur was the son of Ardashir I...

, and appears, in this case, to be synonymous to Colchis.

The Machelones were closely related ethnically to the neighboring Macrones

Macrones

The Macrones were an ancient Colchian tribe in the east of Pontus, about the Moschici Mountains .The Macrones are first mentioned by Herodotus , who relates that they, along with Moschi, Tabal, Mossynoeci, and Mares, formed the nineteenth satrapy within the Achaemenid Persian Empire and fought...

 (a tribe believed to be the ancestors of present-day Mingrelians, a subethnic group of the Georgian people), known since at least the 5th century BC.