Papers of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (6.1890-1897 (1897))

(ill

ERETRIA: HISTORICAL SKETCH.

If one seeks for corroborations of Phoenician occupation of Eretria,
he finds among the several stories that Strabo has to tell of the origin
of the city, one which is to the point. He says (p. 447) that the Ara-
bians who came over with Cadmus ("Apa/3e? oi KdSfim avvhiafiavrei)
stayed behind in Chalcis and Eretria. But perhaps it is an imperti-
nence to hunt after scattered literary notices, when we have the facts of
the presence of the murex along the Euripus (Arist., Hist. An., v. 15)
and. the copper-industry of Chalcis. Wherever there were purple and
copper, there were Phoenicians. We can hardly think of the Phoeni-
cians as occupying Chalcis without including Eretria also. Here were
harbor, plain, and acropolis, as at Corinth and Nauplia. We may,
then, think of Phoenicians awakening here, as they did everywhere
along the coasts that they touched, the ruder Hellenes to a new life.3
Accordingly Chalcis and Eretria developed early. While Athens and
Sparta are still slumbering, these cities are founding colonies from Chal-
cidice to Cumae. In the eighth century b. c. they had their blooming
period. Miletus and Samos did not develop until a century later, and
when they came to the front the Eubcean cities were already on the
decline.1

It is impossible to trace with certainty anything of the Phoenician
settlement at Eretria. Perhaps it was on the peninsula forming the
east side of the present harbor. This peninsula was once longer and
wider than at present. It is still about 600 ft. long and about 300 ft.
wide at its widest part. The action of wind and wave both up and
down the Euripus seems destined to wear it away entirely. Even now
it is an island at some hours of the day. It contains numerous remains
of walls of the Macedonian or the Roman period. What at first appeared
to be traces of very old walls much disintegrated proved to be an illusion.

Strabo gives traditions of early settlements in Eretria from Attica
and the Peloponnesus, which it is difficult to prove. The immigration
from Elis, which is probably separate from that from Triphylia, he
attempts to substantiate by appealing to the prevalence of the Elean
rhotacism in Eretria.5 Perhaps the mixture of many races, Abantes,

3 Dondokff, Die loner auf Eubcea, p. 29.

4 Holm, Lange Fehde, in Abhandlungen zu Ernst Curtius' 70<em Geburtstag.

5It is interesting that a Eubcean inscription, published in the 'E<pniJ.eph 'Apx<"»-
\oyiK-n, for 1872, containing the text of a treaty between Eretria and Histiaea, shows
several instances of rhotacism, e. g., 6ir6pai, &\_px\ovpiv, wapaQu'ivtcpiv. Others in 'E<pi)ix.
'Apx-, I8S7, p. 82, seq., and 1890, p. 195, seq.