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(Redirected from Rioni)
:'''Phasis' redirects here. For the butterfly genus, see ''Phasis (butterfly).
The 'Rioni River' (Georgian რიონი ''Rioni'') is the main river of western Georgia. It originates in the Caucasus Mountains, in the region of Racha and flows west to the Black Sea. It enters the Black Sea north of the city of Poti. The city of Kutaisi, once ancient city of Colchis, lies on its banks.
Known to the ancient Greeks as the 'Phasis River' (Greek: Φάσις), it was first mentioned by Hesiod in his ''Theogony'' (l.340); later writers like Apollonius Rhodius (''Argonautica'' 2.12.61), Virgil (''Georgics'' 4.367) and Aelius Aristides (''Ad Romam'' 82) considered it the easternmost limit of the navigable seas. Socrates, in ''Phaedo'' referred to the portion of the world he knew of as between the Pillars of Hercules and the River Phasis.
The name of the Pheasant is derived from this river, as it was in this region that the ancients first encountered the birds.[1]

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★ Concise Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford University Press, T.F. Hoad, 1996