Macrones

The name is allegedly derived from the name of Kromni valley (Κορούμ, located 13 km north-east of Gümüşhane) by adding Kartvelian ma- prefix which denotes regional descendance.

[1] The Macrones are first mentioned by Herodotus (c. 450 BC), who relates that they, along with Moschi, Tibareni, Mossynoeci, and Marres, formed the nineteenth satrapy within the Achaemenid Persian Empire and fought under Xerxes I.

They are described as a powerful and wild people wearing garments made of hair, and as using in war wooden helmets, small shields of wicker-work, and short lances with long points.

[2] Strabo (xii.3.18) remarks, in passing, that the people formerly called Macrones bore in his day the name of Sanni, a claim supported also by Stephanus of Byzantium, though Pliny speaks of the Sanni and Macrones as two distinct peoples.

The Macrones are identified by modern scholars as one of the proto-Georgian tribes[4] whose presence in Northeastern Anatolia might have preceded the Hittite period, and who survived the demise of Urartu.