Malkhi are mentioned by ancient Greco-Syrian writer
Lucian and ancient
Roman writer
Claudius Aelianus. Despite Lucian's work having a literary and narrative nature, it shows what image the people living in
Bosporan Kingdom had about the military-political union of the ancient
Chechen, which they knew as "Malkhi". As per the tradition, Malkh acted as one of the large state formations of
Southeast Europe in the second half of the 1st millennium BC, having connections with Bosporus, as well as competing with it and with the
Scythians, the
Colchis. == Identity ==