Euboea

Antiquity

The history of the island of Euboea is largely that of its two principal cities, Chalcis and Eretria, both mentioned in the Catalogue of Ships. Both cities were settled by Ionian Greeks from Attica, and would eventually settle numerous colonies in Magna Graecia and Sicily, such as Cumae and Rhegium, and on the coast of Macedonia. This opened new trade routes to the Greeks, and extended the reach of Western Civilization.^[7] The commercial influence of these city-states is evident in the fact that the Euboic scale of weights and measures was used among the Ionic cities generally, and in Athens until the end of the 7th century BC, during the time of Solon.^[3] The classicist Barry B. Powell has proposed that Euboea may have been where the Greek alphabet was first employed, c. 775–750 BC, and that Homer may have spent part of his life on the island.^[8]

Chalcis and Eretria were rival cities, and appear to have been equally powerful for a while. One of the earliest major military conflicts in Greek history took place between them, known as the Lelantine War, in which many other Greek city-states also took part.^[9] In 490 BC, Eretria was utterly ruined by the Persian armies. Eretria, Athens, and other Ionian Greek states had previously burned the Persian city of Sardis and participated in the Ionian revolution. After Eretria was destroyed, its inhabitants were transported as captives to Persia.^{[clarification needed]} Though it was restored nearby its original site after the Battle of Marathon, the city never regained its former eminence.^[10] Following the battles of Thermopylae and Artemisium in 480 BC, Persian forces occupied Euboea along with Attica and Boeotia.^[11] Following their decisive defeat at the Battle of Plataea the following year, the Persians withdrew from all of their European possessions, including Euboea.

Both cities gradually lost influence to Athens, which saw Euboea as a strategic territory. Euboea was an important source of grain and cattle, and controlling the island meant Athens could prevent invasion and better protect its trade routes from piracy. Athens invaded Chalcis in 506 BC and settled 4,000 Attic Greeks on their lands. After this conflict, the whole of the island was gradually reduced to an Athenian dependency.^[12] Another struggle between Euboea and Athens broke out in 446. Led by Pericles, the Athenians subdued the revolt, and captured Histiaea in the north of the island for their own settlement.^[10]

By 410 BC, during the Peloponnesian War, the island succeeded in regaining its independence. Euboea participated in Greek affairs until it fell under the control of Philip II of Macedon after the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC. It was incorporated into the Roman Republic in the second century BC.^[10] Aristotle died on the island in 322 BC soon after fleeing Athens for his mother's family estate in Chalcis. From the early Hellenistic period to well into the Roman Imperial period, the island was organized into the Euboean League.

Middle Ages

Unlike much of Byzantine Greece, Euboea was spared the bulk of the barbarian raids during late antiquity and the early medieval period, due to its relatively isolated location. The Vandals raided its shores in 466 and in 475, but the island seems to have been left alone by the Avars and Slavs, and it was not until a failed Arab attack on Chalcis in the 870s that the island again came under threat.^[6] As a result, the island preserved a relative prosperity throughout the early medieval period, as attested by finds of mosaics, churches and sculpture throughout the 7th century, "even from remote areas of the island". In the 6th century, the Synecdemus listed four cities on the island, Aidipsos, Chalcis, Porthmos (modern Aliveri) and Karystos, and a number of other sites are known as bishoprics in the subsequent centuries (Oreoi and Avlon), although their urban character is unclear.^[6] In the 8th century, Euboea formed a distinct fiscal district (dioikesis), and then formed part of the theme of Hellas.^[6]

In 1157 all the coastal towns of Euboea were destroyed by a Sicilian force,^[13] while Chalcis was burned down by the Venetians in 1171.^[6] During the 13th century, the Greek element of the island was strengthened by the Byzantine Emperor Michael Palaiologos.^[14]

Euboea came into prominence following the Fourth Crusade. In the partition of the Byzantine Empire by the crusaders after 1204, the island was occupied by a number of Lombard families, who divided it into three baronies, the Triarchy of Negroponte; each barony was split in 1216, giving six sestiere. The island's rulers came early on under the influence of the Venetian Republic, which secured control of the island's commerce in the War of the Euboeote Succession (1256–1258) and gradually expanded its control, until they acquired full sovereignty by 1390.

On 12 July 1470, during the Ottoman–Venetian War of 1463–1479 and after a protracted and bloody siege, the well-fortified city of Negroponte (Chalcis) was wrested from Venice by Mehmed II and the whole island fell into the hands of the Ottoman Empire. The Doge Francesco Morosini besieged the city in 1688, but was forced to withdraw after three months.^[10]

Albanians started settling Euboea gradually, since 1402, encouraged by the Venetians. In 1425, a total of 10,000 Albanians from various regions were settled in Euboea. A further indeterminate number of Albanians settled in the island in 1435. These Albanians intermingled with the local Greeks of the island.^[15] A contemporary report (1687) notes that in 1471 Greeks had abandoned the island and by 1687 almost all of the island was inhabited by Albanians. This isn't corroborated in other reports so it likely presents a doubtful depiction of the demographic situation in the island.^[16] According to Johann Georg Von Hahn (1854), Albanians were present in all of the cities of southern Euboea, excluding the town of Karystos which was inhabited solely by Greeks.^[17][18] According to Hahn, the Albanians numbered 25,000 in south Euboea, out of 72,368 total population of the island as a whole.^[17]

The Greek inhabitants of south Euboea spoke a certain dialect related to Old Athenian.^[19] This dialect was spoken in Kymi, Avlonari, Konistres, Aliveri, Karystos and other places.^[20]

Although the name Negroponte remained current in European languages until the 19th century, the Turks themselves called the city and the island Eğriboz or Ağriboz after the Euripos Strait. Under Ottoman rule, Ağriboz was the seat of a sanjak that also encompassed much of Continental Greece.

At the conclusion of the Greek War of Independence in 1830, the island returned to Greece and constituted a part of the newly established independent Greek kingdom.^[10]

Modern period

In 1982, in the Greek-speaking village of Antia in southern Euboea, the entire population knew the local whistled language called sfyria (from the Greek word sfyrizo 'whistle'),^[21] but only a few whistlers remain in the 21st century.^[22] Sfyria is "a whistled version of spoken Greek, in which letters and syllables correspond to distinct tones and frequencies."^[21]

Beginning in late 1943, 1,000 Greek Jews were smuggled from Thessaloniki and Athens via the island by the Greek Resistance and British MI11 to Çeşme in neutral Turkey, thereby escaping the Holocaust in Greece.^[23]

Euboea is linked to the mainland by two bridges, one that runs through Chalcis and is also accessible from Thebes, and another which bypasses Chalcis and is accessed from Athens. All of Euboea's modern bridges are suspended.

In the 1980s, the Dystos lake was filled with grass which was set on fire by farmers to make more farmland. This act caused devastation of much of the plants and the environment in that area.^{[citation needed]} A part of the lake later regenerated. Also the municipalities of Anthidona and Avlida in the mid to late 20th century, which once were part of Boeotia, reverted to Chalcis.^{[citation needed]} Since then, the postal codes have corresponded with the rest of Euboea, including Skyros.

A week-long major forest fire in 2021 destroyed over 50,000 hectares of forest and agricultural land in the north of the island, one of the largest forest fires in modern Greek history.