Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/181

 CITALKIS, IEETRIA, SAXOS, ETC. 165 resident in Chalkis and Eretria than if they had been situated on the other side of the ^gean. 1 The towns above enumerated in Eubcea, excepting Athense 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 Abas in Phokis, Hesiod deduces the name of Eubcea from the cow I6. 2 Ilellopia, a district near Histnca, was said to have been founded by Hell ops, son of Ion : according to others, JEklus and Kothus, two Athenians, 3 were the founders, the former of Eretria, the latter of Chalkis and Kerinthus : and we are told, that among the demes of Attica, there were two named Histiaea and Eretria, from whence some contended that the appellations of the two Eubcean towns were derived. Though Herodotus represents the population of Styra as Dryopian, there were others 1 The seventh Oration of Dio Chrysostom, which describes his shipwreck near Cape Kaphareus, on the island of Eubcea, 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 ( yaAoKro-orac uvijp, ovpsi- PUTCIC, 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 moun- tain (p. 232) ; it must probably have been Karystus. The high lands of Eubcea were both uninhabited and difficult of approach, CTcn 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 TU aKpa ->/<; HZvSoiijc as a refuge against the Persian force under Datis (Herod, vi, 100). 'Plutarch, Quest Graic. p. 296; Strah. x, p. 446 (whose statements ars Tsry perplexed) ; Vcllcius Fatereul. i, 4. According to Skymnus the Cliinn (v. 572). Chalkis was founded by Pan- doras son of Erechtlieus, and KC'rinthus l>v KutJ/in, from Athens
 * Strabo, x, p. 445.