Maxyes
Μάξυες
Eth. Maxyes (Μάξυες, Hdt. 4.191, where the name should be Eth. Μάζυες; see MAURETANIA p. 297a.), a Libyan tribe, and a branch of the nomad AUSENSES Herodotus (l.c.) places them on the other side,
i. e. the W. bank, of the river Triton: reclaimed from nomad life, they were tillers of the earth, and accustomed to live in houses.
They still, however, retained some relics of their former customs, as they suffer the hair on the right side of their heads to grow, but shave the left; they paint their bodies with red-lead:
remains of this custom of wearing the hair are still preserved among the Tuaryks, their modern descendants. (Hornemann, Trav. p. 109.) They were probably the same people as those mentioned by Justin (18.7), and called MAXYTANI, whose king is said to have been Hiarbas (Verg. A. 4.36, 196, 326), and to have desired Dido for his wife. (Heeren, African Nations, vol. i. p. 34, trans.; Rennell, Geog. of Herod. vol. ii. p. 303.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.