Gelae (tribe)

The Gelae (Ancient Greek: Γῆλαι, Γέλαι, or Γέλοι, Gélai or Géloi ), or Gelians, were a Scythian tribe mentioned by Strabo and other ancient writers as living on the southern shores of the Caspian Sea. The name of the province Gilan might possibly be derived from the Gelae. Josef Wiesehöfer stated that the Gelae were a Median people of Scythian origin, who were identified with the Cadusians in ancient sources. Strabo first mentions the Gelae, along with the Legae, in the fifth chapter of the eleventh book of his Geographica, who according to Theophanes of Mytilene, Pompey's compaignon in his Caucasian campaign in the first century BC, lived between the Amazons and the Albanians, thus, were placed in Northern Caucasus. Plutarch specified that the Amazons did not border on the Albanians but were divided by them from the Gelae and Legae. Therefore, they must have been peoples neighbouring the Albanians, but distinct from them. Strabo's second account of the Gelae, mentions them among the tribes of the southern Caspian which included the Cadusii, Amardi, Witii, and Anariacae, in a manner which does not agree with what he initially says of their position. We must perhaps suppose that this people, in part at least, have changed either changed their place of residence or were perhaps another tribe with a similar name. If, as seems probable, this description accurately represents their distribution from west to east, then the Gelae would have lived directly east of the river Araxes, along the border of Armenia. Their territory is supposed to have been relatively unproductive, of little agricultural or mineral value.