Chaonia

The landscape Chaonia / Chaonien (Albanian: Kaonia, Greek: Χαονία ) comprised in the settlement area of ​​the ancient Chaonier on the coast of the Ionian Sea to the Straits of Corfu. Today Chaonia is predominantly in Albania (about the circles Delvina and Saranda ).

Location

Chaonia belonged to Epirus, and ranged from Onchesmos the modern city of Saranda in the north to the river Thyamis in the south and closed while the landscape with a Cestrine. In the southeast Chaonia bordered on the Molossis, to the south Thesprotia, in the north- east, the border does not draw as clear.

Main locations were Buthrotum, Onchesmus (today Saranda ), Phoinike ( near Finiq at Delvina ) and ilium.

Origin of the name

The region was probably named after the tribe who settled there Epirotic the Chaonier that had its heyday in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. According to Virgil, Aeneid 3.335, the area was called but after Chaon, a brother of Helenus son of Priam and so. As Helenus in Epirus had become king, he named in honor of his brother, a part of his land Chaonia.

Today, the area partly belongs to Greece, partly to Albania.