EUBŒA. — CYCLADES.
Among the Ionic portion of Hellas are to be reckoned (besides Athens)
Eubœa, and the numerous group of islands included between the
southernmost Eubœan promontory, the eastern coast of Peloponnesus,
and the north-western coast of Krête. Of these islands some are to be
considered as outlying prolongations, in a south-easterly direction,
of the mountain-system of Attica; others, of that of Eubœa; while
a certain number of them lie apart from either system, and seem
referable to a volcanic origin.[263] To the first class belong Keôs,
Kythnus, Serīphus, Pholegandrus, Sikinus, Gyarus, Syra, Paros, and
Antiparos; to the second class, Andros, Tênos, Mykonos, Dêlos, Naxos,
Amorgos; to the third class, Kimôlus, Mêlos, Thêra. These islands
passed amongst the ancients by the general name of the Cyclades and
the Sporades; the former denomination being commonly understood to
comprise those which immediately surrounded the sacred island of
Dêlos,—the latter being given to those which lay more scattered and
apart. But the names are not applied with uniformity or steadiness
even in ancient times: at present, the whole group are usually known
by the title of Cyclades.
[263] See Fiedler, Reisen durch Griechenland, vol. ii, p. 87.
The population of these islands was called Ionic,—with the exception
of Styra and Karystus in the southern part of Eubœa, and the island
of Kythnus, which were peopled by dryopes,[264] the same tribe as
those who have been already remarked in the Argolic peninsula; and
with the exception also of Mêlos and Thêra, which were colonies from
Sparta.
[264] Herodot. viii, 46; Thucyd. vii, 57.
The island of Eubœa, long and narrow like Krête, and exhibiting a
continuous backbone of lofty mountains from north-west to south-east,
is separated from Bœotia at one point by a strait so narrow
(celebrated in antiquity under the name of the Eurīpus), that the
two were connected by a bridge for a large portion of the historical
period of Greece, erected during the later times of the Peloponnesian
war by the inhabitants of Chalkis.[265] Its general want of breadth
leaves little room for plains: the area of the island consists
principally of mountain, rock, dell, and ravine, suited in many
parts for pasture, but rarely convenient for grain-culture or town
habitations. Some plains there were, however, of great fertility,
especially that of Lelantum,[266] bordering on the sea near Chalkis,
and continuing from that city in a southerly direction towards
Eretria. Chalkis and Eretria, both situated on the western coast, and
both occupying parts of this fertile plain, were the two principal
places in the island: the domain of each seems to have extended
across the island from sea to sea.[267] Towards the northern end of
the island were situated Histiæa, afterwards called Oreus,—as well as
Kêrinthus and Dium, Athênæ Diades, Ædêpsus, Ægæ, and Orobiæ, are also
mentioned on the north-western coast, over against Lokris. Dystus,
Styra, and Karystus are made known to us in the portion of the island
south of Eretria,—the two latter opposite to the Attic demes Halæ,
Araphênides, and Prasiæ.[268] The large extent of the island of Eubœa
was thus distributed between six or seven cities, the larger and
central portion belonging to Chalkis and Eretria. But the extensive
mountain lands, applicable only for pastures in the summer,—for the
most part public lands, let out for pasture to such proprietors as
had the means of providing winter sustenance elsewhere for their
cattle,—were never visited by any one except the shepherds; and were
hardly better known to the citizens resident in Chalkis and Eretria
than if they had been situated on the other side of the Ægean.[269]
[265] Diodor. xiii, 47.
[266] Kallimachus, Hymn. ad Delum, 289, with Spanheim’s note;
Theognis, v, 888; Theophrast. Hist. Plant. 8, 5.
See Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, vol. ii, ch. 14, p. 254,
_seq._ The passage of Theognis leads to the belief that Kêrinthus
formed a part of the territory of Chalkis.
[267] Skylax (c. 59) treats the island of Skyrus as opposite to
Eretria, the territory of which must, therefore, have included a
portion of the eastern coast of Eubœa, as well as the western.
He recognizes only four cities in the island,—Karystus, Eretria,
Chalkis, and Hestiæa.
[268] Mannert, Geograph. Gr. Röm. part viii, book i, c. 16, p.
248; Strabo, x, pp. 445-449.
[269] The seventh Oration of Dio Chrysostom, which describes
his shipwreck near Cape Kaphareus, on the island of Eubœa,
and the shelter and kindness which he experienced from a
poor mountain huntsman, presents one of the most interesting
pictures remaining, of this purely rustic portion of the Greek
population (Or. vii, p. 221, _seq._),—men who never entered
the city, and were strangers to the habits, manners, and dress
there prevailing,—men who drank milk and were clothed in skins
(γαλακτοπότας ἀνὴρ, οὐρειβάτας, Eurip. Elektr. 169), yet
nevertheless (as it seems) possessing right of citizenship (p.
238) which they never exercised. The industry of the poor men
visited by Dion had brought into cultivation a little garden and
field in a desert spot near Kaphareus.
Two-thirds of the territory of this Euboic city consisted of
barren mountain (p. 232); it must probably have been Karystus.
The high lands of Eubœa were both uninhabited and difficult
of approach, even at the time of the battle of Marathon, when
Chalkis and Eretria had not greatly declined from the maximum of
their power: the inhabitants of Eretria looked to τὰ ἄρκα τῆς
Εὐβοίης as a refuge against the Persian force under Datis (Herod.
vi, 100).
The towns above enumerated in Eubœa, excepting Athenæ Diades, all
find a place in the Iliad. Of their history we know no particulars
until considerably after 776 B. C., and they are first introduced
to us as Ionic, though in Homer the population are called Abantes.
The Greek authors are never at a loss to give us the etymology of a
name. While Aristotle tells us that the Abantes were Thracians who
had passed over into the island from Abæ in Phokis, Hesiod deduces
the name of Eubœa from the cow Iô.[270] Hellopia, a district near
Histiæa, was said to have been founded by Hellops, son of Ion:
according to others, Æklus and Kothus, two Athenians,[271] were the
founders, the former of Eretria, the latter of Chalkis and Kêrinthus:
and we are told, that among the demes of Attica, there were two
named Histiæa and Eretria, from whence some contended that the
appellations of the two Eubœan towns were derived. Though Herodotus
represents the population of Styra as Dryopian, there were others
who contended that it had originally been peopled from Marathon and
the tetrapolis of Attica, partly from the deme called Steireïs. The
principal writers whom Strabo consulted seem to trace the population
of Eubœa, by one means or other, to an Attic origin, though there
were peculiarities in the Eretrian dialect which gave rise to the
supposition that they had been joined by settlers from Elis, or from
the Triphylian Makistus.
[270] Strabo, x, p. 445.
[271] Plutarch, Quæst. Græc. p. 296; Strab. x, p. 446 (whose
statements are very perplexed); Velleius Patercul. i, 4.
According to Skymnus the Chian (v. 572), Chalkis was founded by
Pandôrus son of Erechtheus, and Kêrinthus by Kothôn, from Athens.
Our earliest historical intimations represent Chalkis and Eretria as
the wealthiest, most powerful, and most enterprising Ionic cities
in European Greece,—apparently surpassing Athens, and not inferior
to Samos or Miletus. Besides the fertility of the plain Lelantum,
Chalkis possessed the advantage of copper and iron ore, obtained
in immediate proximity both to the city and to the sea,—which her
citizens smelted and converted into arms and other implements, with
a very profitable result: the Chalkidic sword acquired a distinctive
renown.[272] In this mineral source of wealth several of the other
islands shared: iron ore is found in Keôs, Kythnus, and Seriphus,
and traces are still evident in the latter island of extensive
smelting formerly practised.[273] Moreover, in Siphnus, there were
in early times veins of silver and gold, by which the inhabitants
were greatly enriched; though their large acquisitions, attested by
the magnitude of the tithe[274] which they offered at the Delphian
temple, were only of temporary duration, and belong particularly to
the seventh and sixth centuries before the Christian era. The island
of Naxos too, was at an early day wealthy and populous. Andros,
Tênos, Keôs, and several other islands, were at one time reduced
to dependence upon Eretria:[275] other islands seem to have been
in like manner dependent upon Naxos, which at the time immediately
preceding the Ionic revolt possessed a considerable maritime force,
and could muster eight thousand heavy-armed citizens,[276]—a very
large force for any single Grecian city. Nor was the military force
of Eretria much inferior; for in the temple of the Amarynthian
Artemis, nearly a mile from the city, to which the Eretrians were in
the habit of marching in solemn procession to celebrate the festival
of the goddess, there stood an ancient column setting forth that
the procession had been performed by no less than three thousand
hoplites, six hundred horsemen, and sixty chariots.[277] The date of
this inscription cannot be known, but it can hardly be earlier than
the 45th Olympiad, or 600 B. C.,—near about the time of the Solonian
legislation. Chalkis was still more powerful than Eretria; both were
in early times governed by an oligarchy, which among the Chalkidians
was called hippobotæ, or horse-feeders,—proprietors probably of
most part of the plain called Lelantum, and employing the adjoining
mountains as summer pasture for their herds. The extent of their
property is attested by the large number of four thousand kleruchs,
or out-freemen, whom Athens quartered upon their lands, after the
victory gained over them when they assisted the expelled Hippias in
his efforts to regain the Athenian sceptre.[278]
[272] Strabo, x, p. 446,—Πὰρ δὲ Χαλκιδικαὶ σπάθαι (Alkæus,
Fragm. 7, Schneidewin),—Χαλκιδικὸν ποτήριον (Aristophan. Equit.
237),—certainly belongs to the Euboic Chalkis, not to the
Thrakian Chalkidikê. Boeckh, Staatshaushalt. der Athener, vol.
ii, p. 284, App. xi, cites Χαλκιδικὰ ποτηρία in an inscription:
compare Steph. Byz. Χαλκὶς.—Ναυσικλείτης Εὐβοίης, Homer, Hymn.
Apoll. 219.
[273] See the mineralogical account of the islands in Fiedler
(Reisen, vol. ii, pp. 88, 118, 562).
The copper and iron ore near Chalkis had ceased to be worked even
in the time of Strabo: Fiedler indicates the probable site (vol.
i, p. 443).
[274] Herodot. iii. 57. The Siphnians, however, in an evil hour,
committed the wrong of withholding this tithe: the sea soon
rushed in and rendered the mines ever afterwards unworkable
(Pausan. x, 11, 2).
[275] Strabo, x, p. 448.
[276] Herodot. v, 31. Compare the accounts of these various
islands in the recent voyages of Professor Ross, Reisen auf den
Griechischen Inseln, vol. i, letter 2; vol. ii, letter 15.
The population of Naxos is now about eleven thousand souls; that
of Andros fifteen thousand (Ross, vol. i, p. 28; vol. ii, p. 22).
But the extent and fertility of the Naxian plain perfectly
suffice for that aggregate population of one hundred thousand
souls, which seems implied in the account of Herodotus.
[277] Strabo, _l. c._
[278] Herodot. v, 77; Aristoteles, Fragment. περὶ Πολιτειῶν, ed.
Neumann, pp. 111-112: compare Aristot. Polit. iv, 3, 2.
Confining our attention, as we now do, to the first two centuries
of Grecian history, or the interval between 776 B. C. and 560 B.
C., there are scarce any facts which we can produce to ascertain
the condition of these Ionic islands. Two or three circumstances,
however, may be named, which go to confirm our idea of their early
wealth and importance.
1. The Homeric Hymn to Apollo presents to us the island of Dêlos
as the centre of a great periodical festival in honor of Apollo,
celebrated by all the cities, insular and continental, of the Ionic
name. What the date of this hymn is, we have no means of determining:
Thucydidês quotes it, without hesitation, as the production of
Homer, and, doubtless, it was in his time universally accepted as
such,—though modern critics concur in regarding both that and the
other hymns as much later than the Iliad and Odyssey: it cannot
probably be later than 600 B. C. The description of the Ionic
visitors presented to us in this hymn is splendid and imposing:
the number of their ships, the display of their finery, the beauty
of their women, the athletic exhibitions as well as the matches of
song and dance,—all these are represented as making an ineffaceable
impression on the spectator:[279] “the assembled Ionians look as
if they were beyond the reach of old age or death.” Such was the
magnificence of which Dêlos was the periodical theatre, and which
called forth the voices and poetical genius not merely of itinerant
bards, but also of the Delian maidens in the temple of Apollo,
during the century preceding 560 B. C. At that time it was the great
central festival of the Ionians in Asia and Europe; frequented by the
twelve Ionic cities, in and near Asia Minor, as well as by Athens
and Chalkis in Europe: it had not yet been superseded by the Ephesia
as the exclusive festival of the former, nor had the Panathenæa of
Athens reached the importance which afterwards came to belong to them
during the plenitude of the Athenian power.
[279] Hom. Hymn. Apoll. Del. 146-176; Thucyd. iii, 104:—
Φαίη κ᾽ ἀθανάτους καὶ ἀγήρως ἔμμεναι αἰεὶ,
Ὃς τότ᾽ ἐπαντιάσει᾽, ὅτ᾽ Ἰάονες ἄθροοι εἶεν·
Πάντων γάρ κεν ἴδοιτο χάριν, τέρψαιτο δὲ θυμὸν,
Ἄνδρας τ᾽ εἰσορόων καλλιζώνους τε γυναῖκας,
Νῆάς τ᾽ ὠκείας ἠδ᾽ αὐτῶν κρήματα πολλά.
We find both Polykratês of Samos, and Peisistratus of Athens, taking
a warm interest in the sanctity of Dêlos and the celebrity of this
festival.[280] But it was partly the rise of these two great Ionian
despots, partly the conquests of the Persians in Asia Minor, which
broke up the independence of the numerous petty Ionian cities,
during the last half of the sixth century before the Christian era;
hence the great festival at Dêlos gradually declined in importance.
Though never wholly intermitted, it was shorn of much of its previous
ornaments, and especially of that which constituted the first of all
ornaments,—the crowds of joyous visitors. And Thucydidês, when he
notices the attempt made by the Athenians during the Peloponnesian
war, in the height of their naval supremacy, to revive the Delian
festival, quotes the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, as a certificate of
its foregone and long-forgotten splendor. We perceive that even
_he_ could find no better evidence than this hymn, for Grecian
transactions of a century anterior to Peisistratus,—and we may,
therefore, judge how imperfectly the history of this period was
known to the men who took part in the Peloponnesian war. The hymn is
exceedingly precious as an historical document, because it attests to
us a transitory glory and extensive association of the Ionic Greeks
on both sides of the Ægean sea, which the conquests of the Lydians
first, and of the Persians afterwards, overthrew,—a time when the
hair of the wealthy Athenian was decorated with golden ornaments,
and his tunic made of linen,[281] like that of the Milesians and
Ephesians, instead of the more sober costume and woollen clothing
which he subsequently copied from Sparta and Peloponnesus,—a time too
when the Ionic name had not yet contracted that stain of effeminacy
and cowardice, which stood imprinted upon it in the time of Herodotus
and Thucydidês, and which grew partly out of the subjugation of
the Asiatic Ionians by Persia, partly out of the antipathy of the
Peloponnesian Dorians to Athens. The author of the Homeric Hymn, in
describing the proud Ionians who thronged, in his day, to the Delian
festival, could hardly have anticipated a time to come, when the name
_Ionian_ would become a reproach, such as the European Greeks, to
whom it really belonged, were desirous of disclaiming.[282]
[280] Thucyd. iii, 104.
[281] Thucyd. i, 6. διὰ τὸ ἁβροδίαιτον, etc.
[282] Herodot. i, 143. Οἱ μέν νυν ἄλλοι Ἴωνες καὶ οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι
ἔφυγον τὸ οὔνομα, οὐ βουλόμενοι Ἴωνες κεκλῆσθαι,—an assertion
quite unquestionable with reference to the times immediately
preceding Herodotus, but not equally admissible in regard to the
earlier times. Compare Thucyd. i, 124 (with the Scholium), and
also v, 9; viii, 25.
2. Another illustrative fact, in reference both to the Ionians
generally, and to Chalkis and Eretria in particular, during the
century anterior to Peisistratus, is to be found in the war between
these two cities respecting the fertile plain Lelantum, which lay
between them. In general, it appears, these two important towns
maintained harmonious relations; but there were some occasions of
dispute, and one in particular, wherein a formidable war ensued
between them. Several allies joined with each, and it is remarkable
that this was the only war known to Thucydidês, anterior to the
Persian conquest, which had risen above the dignity of a mere quarrel
between neighbors; and in which so many different states manifested
a disposition to interfere, as to impart to it a semi-Hellenic
character.[283] Of the allies of each party on this occasion we know
only that the Milesians lent assistance to Eretria, and the Samians,
as well as the Thessalians and the Chalkidic colonies in Thrace,
to Chalkis. A column, still visible during the time of Strabo, in
the temple of the Amarynthian Artemis near Eretria, recorded the
covenant entered into mutually by the two belligerents, to abstain
from missiles, and to employ nothing but hand-weapons. The Eretrians
are said to have been superior in horse, but they were vanquished
in the battle; the tomb of Kleomachus of Pharsalus, a distinguished
warrior who had perished in the cause of the Chalkidians, was erected
in the agora of Chalkis. We know nothing of the date, the duration,
or the particulars of this war;[284] but it seems that the Eretrians
were worsted, though their city always maintained its dignity as the
second state in the island. Chalkis was decidedly the first, and
continued to be flourishing, populous, and commercial, long after
it had lost its political importance, throughout all the period of
Grecian independent history.[285]
[283] Thucyd. i, 15. The second Messenian war cannot have
appeared to Thucydidês as having enlisted so many allies on each
side as Pausanias represents.
[284] Strabo, viii, p. 448; Herodot. v, 99; Plutarch, Amator, p.
760,—valuable by the reference to Aristotle.
Hesiod passed over from Askra to Chalkis, on the occasion of the
funeral games celebrated by the sons of Amphidamas in honor of
their deceased father, and gained a tripod as prize by his song
or recital (Opp. Di. 656). According to the Scholia, Amphidamas
was king of Chalkis, who perished in the war against Eretria
respecting Lelantum. But it appears that Plutarch threw out
the lines as spurious, though he acknowledges Amphidamas as a
vigorous champion of Chalkis in this war. See Septem Sapient.
Conviv. c. 10, p. 153.
This visit of Hesiod to Chalkis was represented as the scene of
his poetical competition with and victory over Homer. (See the
Certamen Hom. et Hes. p. 315, ed. Göttl.)
[285] See the striking description of Chalkis given by Dikæarchus
in the Βίος Ἑλλάδος (Fragment. p. 146, ed. Fuhr).
3. Of the importance of Chalkis and Eretria, during the seventh
and part of the eighth century before the Christian era, we gather
other evidences,—partly in the numerous colonies founded by them,
which I shall advert to in a subsequent chapter,—partly in the
prevalence throughout a large portion of Greece, of the Euboic scale
of weight and money. What the quantities and proportions of this
scale were, has been first shown by M. Boeckh in his “Metrologie.”
It was of Eastern origin, and the gold collected by Dareius in
tribute throughout the vast Persian empire, was ordered to be
delivered in Euboic talents. Its divisions,—the talent equal to
sixty minæ, the mina equal to one hundred drachms, the drachm equal
to six obols,—were the same as those of the scale called Æginæan,
introduced by Pheidôn of Argos; but the six obols of the Euboic
drachm contained a weight of silver equal only to five Æginæan obols,
so that the Euboic denominations,—drachm, mina, and talent,—were
equal only to five-sixths of the same denominations in the Æginæan
scale. It was the Euboic scale which prevailed at Athens before
the debasement introduced by Solon; which debasement,—amounting to
about twenty-seven per cent., as has been mentioned in a previous
chapter,—created a third scale, called the Attic, distinct both
from the Æginæan and Euboic,—standing to the former in the ratio of
3 : 5, and to the latter, in the ratio of 18 : 25. It seems plain
that the Euboic scale was adopted by the Ionians through their
intercourse with the Lydians,[286] and other Asiatics, and that it
became naturalized among their cities under the name of the Euboic,
because Chalkis and Eretria were the most actively commercial states
in the Ægean,—just as the superior commerce of Ægina among the Dorian
states, had given to the scale introduced by Pheidôn of Argos, the
name of Æginæan. The fact of its being so called indicates a time
when these two Eubœan cities surpassed Athens in maritime power and
extended commercial relations, and when they stood among the foremost
of the Ionic cities throughout Greece. The Euboic scale, after having
been debased by Solon, in reference to coinage and money, still
continued in use at Athens for merchandise: the Attic mercantile mina
retained its primitive Euboic weight.[287]
[286] Herodot. i, 94.
[287] See Boeckh’s Metrologie, c. 8 and 9.