People
Suani
Siania Caucusorum
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Svani stands on the map in small black letters rather than the large red capitals usually given to peoples, yet it is most naturally read as the name of a tribe, the Suani of the western Caucasus. The Greek geographer Strabo placed them in the mountains above the Colchians and counted them among the tribes trading at Dioscurias. He and the Roman writer Pliny describe a warlike people who won gold from mountain rivers. Their homeland survives as Svaneti in Georgia, with Mestia as its chief town.