The Chaonians () were an ancient Greek tribe that inhabited the region of Epirus currently part of north-western Greece and southern Albania. Together with the Molossians and the Thesprotians, they formed the main tribes of the northwestern Greek group. On their southern frontier lay the Epirote kingdom of the Molossians, to their southwest stood the kingdom of the Thesprotians, and to their north were various Illyrian tribes, as well as the polis of Apollonia. By the 5th century BC, they had conquered and combined to a large degree with the neighboring Thesprotians and Molossians. The Chaonians were part of the Epirote League until 170 BC when their territory was annexed by the Roman Republic. Name Due to phonetic similarity, the Athenian comic playwright Aristophanes, in his play The Knights, punningly associated the ethnonym of the Chaonians with the verb χάσκω, chásko 'to yawn', while in his play The Acharnians, with χάος, cháos 'chaos'; implying the situation that prevailed in Athenian foreign policy, and the indolent nature of Athenian politicians, respectively. According to linguist Vladimir I. Georgiev (1981), both the region of Χαονία 'Chaonia', and the name of its inhabitants Χάονες 'Chaones, Chaonians', derive from Χάων 'Chaon', which in turn derives from the Greek *χαϝ-ών 'place with gorges'; cf. Χάον ὄρος 'Chaon mountain' in Argolis, χάος 'chaos, space, abyss', χάσκω 'to yawn', χάσμα 'chasm, gorge'. According to linguist Carlo De Simone (1985), there is limited availability on the name's etymology and as such no convincing etymology of Chaonia and Chaones (Χᾶονες, Χαῦνοι) can be given. New studies such as of linguist Panagiotis Filos (2017) assert that the toponym and tribal name have a Greek etymology, citing Radoslav Katičić, who in turn cites examples from Georgiev. History The Chaonians were mentioned for the first time by Thucydides in the 5th century BC. According to Strabo, the Chaonians (along with the Molossians) were the most famous among the fourteen tribes of Epirus, because they once ruled over the whole of Epirus. The Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax makes a clear distinction between the Chaonians and their northern neighbours, the Illyrian tribes that occupied the coastal and hinterland regions further north. Some of the tribes that belonged to the Chaonians may have practiced tumulus burial during or at the end of the Bronze Age; this feature continued into the Iron Age. N. G. L. Hammond reconstructed for the period from the 6th century BC a vast