Taochi

The Taochi, or Taochoi (Georgian: ტაოხები, Taochebi; Ancient Greek: Τάοχοι[1]) were a people of Anatolia in antiquity, known mainly from Greco-Roman ethnography.

The Taochoi lived in a mountainous area of the Black Sea to the current borders of Georgia, Armenia, and Turkey.

He recorded that these people were brave, valiant and self-sacrificing to such extremity that after losing the battle, the Taochoi committed mass suicide along with their wives and their children by jumping off the cliff in order not to be enslaved.

In the midst of this scene Aeneas of Stymphalus, a captain, catching sight of a man, who was wearing a fine robe, running to cast himself down, seized hold of him in order to stop him; but the man dragged Aeneas along after him, and both went flying down the cliffs and were killed.

In this stronghold only a very few human beings were captured, but they secured cattle and asses in large numbers and sheep” (Anabasis IV.vii.13-14).