TheMachelones (Georgian:მახელონები) (Machelônes, Machelonoi;Greek:Μαχελῶνες) were aColchian tribe located to the far south of the Phasis (modern-dayRioni River, westernGeorgia). There are several references to them inClassical sources. This group may be the Machorones ofPliny (NH 6.4.11) who placed them between theOphis (modern Of,Turkey) and Prytanis rivers.^[1]

The 1st century AD writerLucian also comments about the Machlyai and their ruler, but the account seems to be entirely fictional.Ptolemy, in the early 2nd century AD, mentions the town of Mechlessos on the border of Colchis, but adds nothing substantive. His contemporary author,Arrian, lists on a west to east orientation theSannoi,Drilae, Machelonoi,Heniochoi,Zudreitai, andLazoi (Perip. 1 1.1-2). Writing in the early 3rd century about an event a hundred years earlier (AD 117),Dio Cassius (68.19) relates that the Machelonoi and the neighboring Heniochoi were ruled by a single "king", Anchialos, who submitted to the Roman emperorTrajan. 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, aclient state of theSassanidPersian Empire, figures in the so-calledRes Gestae Divi Saporis (Ka'ba-i Zartosht), the mid-3rd-century AD trilingual inscription concerning the political, military, and religious activities ofShapur I, and appears, in this case, to be synonymous to Colchis.^[1]

The Machelones were closely related ethnically to the neighboringMacrones (a tribe believed to be the ancestors of present-dayMingrelians, a subethnic group of the Georgian people), known since at least the 5th century BC.^[2]