Elymian

plural Elymians

1. historicalAny member of a people who inhabited western Sicily during the Bronze Age and Classical antiquity.

   In 580 the Greeks attacked the Carthaginians and Elymians.

   2009, Jeff Champion, Pyrrhus of Epirus, Pen and Sword Books, unnumbered page

   1 more example

   To the Elymians and the Phoenicians the change of names could have signified a welcome return to the older name of the colony (Makara = "Herakleia") before the Selinuntines seized it and named it "Minoa".

   2011, Irad Malkin, A Small Greek World: Networks in the Ancient Mediterranean, Oxford University Press, page 140

comparative more Elymian · superlative most Elymian

1. Of or pertaining to the Elymian people or their society, language, etc.

   The exact relations which existed between Carthage and the Elymian towns, those again which existed between the two Elymian towns themselves, are nowhere clearly described.

   1892, E. A. Freeman, The History of Sicily from the Earliest Times, Volume III: The Athenian and Carthaginian Invasions, Clarendon Press, page 83

1. human sciencesAn extinct, undeciphered and unclassified language spoken by the Elymians.

   The chance find of a dump at Segesta has yielded more Elymian inscriptions (mostly single words, inscribed in Greek letters on potsherds) than all other sites combined.

   2005, Irad Malkin, Mediterranean Paradigms and Classical Antiquity, Taylor & Francis (Routledge), page 49