TheHalizones (GreekἉλιζῶνες, alsoHalizonians, Alizones or Alazones) are an obscure people who appear inHomer'sIliad as allies ofTroy during theTrojan War. Their leaders were Odius andEpistrophus, said in theBibliotheca 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 (in hisGeography) speculates that "Alybe far away" may originally have read as "Chalybe far away", and he suggests that the Halizones may have beenChalybes, as well asChaldians. Strabo's speculation equating the Halizones with the Chalybes still has proponents, such as the Russian historianIgor Diakonoff.[1]
There has been much other speculation as to the origin of the name 'Halizones', with connections to both the 'Amazons' and the RiverHalys being suggested.
A scholiast on Homer derived the name fromhals, sea, explaining that they lived in a land surrounded by the sea. However, he stated elsewhere that Odius was chief of thePaphlagonians. Herodotus (4.17, 52) placed the Halizones among theScythians in the region of modernVinnytsia Ukraine, whileEphorus, equating them with Amazons, located them nearCyme in Asia Minor. A later scholiast to Homer calls them a Thracian tribe.[2] Meanwhile,Pliny the Elder,Hecataeus of Miletus,Menecrates of Elaea, andPalaephatus all placed the Halizones or Alazones inMysia.
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