Theancient Greek tribes (Ancient Greek:Ἑλλήνων ἔθνη) were groups ofGreek-speaking populations living inGreece,Cyprus, and the variousGreek colonies. They were primarily divided bygeographic,dialectal,political, andcultural criteria, as well as distinct traditions inmythology andreligion. Some groups were of mixed origin, forming asyncretic culture through absorption and assimilation ofprevious and neighboring populations into the Greek language and customs. Greek word for tribe wasPhylē (sing.) andPhylai (pl.), the tribe was further subdivided in Demes (sing.Demos, pl.Demoi) roughly matching to aclan.
The name Pelasgians was used exclusively by the ancient Greek writers, who referred to the populations they considered the ancestors of the Greeks or "pre-Hellenic". Some, mainly later ones, use it to describe purely Greek populations.
With the dominion of land passing on from one tribe to the other, cultural exchange through art and trade, and frequent alliances toward common goals, the ethnic character of the different tribes had become primarily political by the dawn of theHellenistic period. TheRoman conquest of Greece, the subsequent division of theRoman Empire intoGreek East and Latin West, as well as the advent ofChristianity, molded the common ethnic and political Greek identity once and for all to the subjects of theGreek world by the 3rd century AD.
Phaeacians - They lived in the islandScheria (may have been an old name for the island ofKerkyra/Corfu before Corinthian colonization) (mentioned in theOdyssey as a people that welcomedOdysseus before his return toIthaca).
Map 7: Major Greek tribes, as the ancient Greeks perceived them, based on the mythical account provided in theCatalogue of Women by pseudo-Hesiod (6th c. BC)Map 8: Archaic GreeceMap 9: Major regions of mainland ancient Greece, and adjacent "barbarian" lands.Map 10: Ancient Regions of Epirus and Macedon.Map 11: Ancient Regions of West Central, North and West Greece.Map 12: Ancient regions of Central Greece.Map 13: Ancient Regions of Peloponnese (southern mainland Greece).Map 14: Ancient CreteMap 15: Ancient Macedonia
Dryopes - They lived inDryopis, later known asDoris (after driven out by theMalians, aDorian tribe, many scattered to other Greek regions, mostly towards far southern ofEuboea Island).
Triphylians - They were a group of three tribes (Tri - Three,Phylai -Tribes) that lived in WesternPeloponnese, in southern part ofElis (south ofAlpheiós river) but saw themselves asArcadians and notEleans.
Acarnanians, Northwestern Greek - They lived inAcarnania (this region had two groups of Greeks: the native Northwestern Greek Acarnanians and the Dorians Proper Acarnanians, many of whom were descendants from Corinthian colonies).
Ithacians - They lived inIthaca Island (the land of the legendaryOdysseus, the main character of theOdyssey and also one of the main ones in theIliad whose author is traditionally thought to beHomer).
Acarnanians, Dorians Proper - They lived inAcarnania (this region had two groups of Greeks: the native Northwestern Greek Acarnanians and the Dorians Proper Acarnanians, many of whom were descendants from Corinthian colonies).
Dorians (ofDoris) - They lived inDoris (UpperCephissus river valley). They were viewed as a people close to the land were Dorians originated - roughly southEpirus andAetolia in Northwest Greece (when they migrated towards south).
Magnetes - They lived inMagnesia (most ofThessaly's coastal region). They were seen by ancient Greeks as a people that shared a common ancestor with theMacedonians.
Lemnian Pelasgians - They lived inLemnos island, in the NorthAegean Sea. They were conquered byAthens at the end of the 6th century BC and later assimilated into anIonian Greek identity. Some of them moved to the peninsula's promontory ofActē (today'sMount Athos).
Cynurians - They lived inCynuria (Cynuria had two enclaves, one on the coast of easternPeloponnese Peninsula, betweenLaconia andArgolis, and another inland, in the far southwesternArcadia, also calledParrhasia) but it is not certain ifCynurians of East Peloponnese coast andCynurians of the inland (Arcadia) were the same people, two branches of an original people or even if they were directly related.
Hyantes Pelasgians (legendary or partly based on a true people and historical events) - Former Pelasgians inhabitants ofBoeotia, from which country they were expelled by the followers ofCadmus (Peck; Pliny's Natural History, iv.12).
^Roger D. Woodard (2008), "Greek dialects", in:The Ancient Languages of Europe, ed. R. D. Woodard, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 51.
^The Illyrian Atintani, the Epirotic Atintanes and the Roman Protectorate N. G. L. Hammond, The Journal of Roman Studies Vol. 79 (1989), pp. 11-25 "There were Illyrian Amantini in Pannonia and Greek Amantes in North Epirus"
^Wilkes, John.The Illyrians (The Peoples of Europe). Wiley-Blackwell, 1995, p. 97.
^Mogens Herman Hansen and Thomas Heine Nielsen.An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis. Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 345.
^Mogens Herman Hansen and Thomas Heine Nielsen.An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis. Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 338.
^abJohn Boardman and Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière Hammond.The Cambridge Ancient History Volume 3, Part 3: The Expansion of the Greek World, Eighth to Sixth Centuries B.C. Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 284.
^Woodhouse, William John.Aetolia: Its Geography, Topography, and Antiquities. Clarendon Press, 1897, p. 70. "Ptolemy, however, makes them neighbours of the Epirot tribe of the Kassopaioi, who lived on the coast of the Ionian sea."
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