Abstract
The mention of the Halizones in the Trojan Catalogue (2.851sq.) is a matter of interest for specialists of Homeric poetry, Black Sea history and Byzantine receptions of Antiquity. Their case is an illustration of different forms of Greek ‘intentional history’: the history of this ἔθνος begins with the textualisation of the Iliad, goes through the Greek attempts of Homeric historicisation, and ends with the Roman and Byzantine reification of epic characters into individual and collective identities. Thanks to the Halizones, one can seize the long-lasting process of inventing ethnic identities in a continuous dialogue between emic and etic perceptions: the relationships between fictional and real peoples are explained in terms of ‘imagined ethnographies’ participating in ‘invented ethnicities’.