Atintanians

Atintanes or Atintanians (, Atintánes or Ἀτιντᾶνιοι, Atintánioi; ) was an ancient tribe that dwelled in the borderlands between Epirus and Illyria, in an inland region which was called Atintania. They have been described as either an Epirote tribe that belonged to the northwestern Greek group, or as an Illyrian tribe. They were occasionally subordinate to the Molossians.

==Name== The suffix -anes is quite typical in north-western Doric Greek and is found in several ethnonyms in Epirus (Arktanes, Athamanes, Talaianes etc.) but is also found in other Greek regions apart from Epirus. A. J. Toynbee argues that the suffix -anes perhaps suggests that the name Atintanes may have been of Greek origin. He also states that they gave the Greeks their name for the Titanes, a race of giants in mythology. Toynbee has linked their name to the tribal ethnikon Tyntenoi attested in coinage and inscriptions, while N.G.L Hammond has argued that it is linked to the Illyrian Atintani as according to him Tyntenoi is an Ionic form of Atintani. The ending -anes in Doric Greek (-enes in Ionic) is a typical feature in the name of various Doric tribes that participated in the migrations of the Greek Dark Ages (1100-800 B.C.) with many of them originating from Epirus.