DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.45277#0044
xl
INTRODUCTION.
The
Etiboic
Standard.
The
Lelantian
war.
and Macedon in the north. Here in the north the peninsula of Chalcidice,
with its numerous hospitable bays, attracted in early times a great number of
colonists from Chaicis, who founded cities in every promising spot, and named
the whole district after their mother city, Chalcidice.
The colonies of Eretria, the rival sister of Chaicis, were hardly less nu-
merous, and were for the most part situate on the promontory of Pallene and
round the foot of Mount Athos.
These two Euboean towns, Chaicis and Eretria, were the most enterprising
Ionic cities in European Greece, and were perhaps scarcely inferior in this
respect to Samos and Miletus in Asia. Their ships covered the seas and carried
the native copper ore of Euboea, for which Chaicis was so famous, and from
which its name was derived, to the coasts of Asia Minor, Thrace, Italy, and
Sicily, bringing back in exchange the products of every land,—the gold of the
East, the electrum of Lydia, and especially silver from the highlands of Chal-
cidice, in which district no less than thirty-two towns had been founded
from Chaicis alone, not to mention those of which Eretria was the mother
city.
From Ionia, possibly through Samos1, the Euboeans imported the standard
by which they weighed their silver. This standard was the light Assyrio-
Babylonic gold mina with its shekel or stater of about 130 grs. The Euboeans,
having little or no gold, transferred the weight used in Asia for gold to their
own silver, raising it slightly at the same time to a maximum of 135 grs., and
from Euboea it soon spread over a large portion of the Greek world by means
of the widely extended commercial relations of the enterprising Euboean
cities.
This may have taken place towards the close of the eighth century, and
before the war which broke out at the end of that century between Chaicis and
Eretria, nominally for the possession of the fields of Lelantum, which lay
between the two rival cities.
The war, which goes by the name of the Lelantian war, was in reality a
contest for maritime supremacy, in which the commercial interests of both
towns were at stake. The evidence of this is the universal character which it
assumed. Nearly all the important states of Greece took one side or the
other, and the whole Aegean sea became one vast theatre on which the quarrel
was to be fought out. Corinth took the side of Chaicis, Corcyra that of
Eretria. In Asia Minor Samos and Miletus also took opposite sides.
Such a separation of all Greece into two hostile camps, we must suppose to
have been occasioned by the clashing commercial interests of neighbouring
states, the advantages of some being more closely bound up with one party,
those of others with the other.
The Lelantian commercial war shows what frequent intercourse there must
have been in the eighth century between Euboea and the opposite coasts
of Asia.
From what Asiatic port the Euboeans received the Babyionic gold weight is
doubtful, but there is some reason to think that it may have been Samos.
1 Num. Ghron., 1875, p. 272.
INTRODUCTION.
The
Etiboic
Standard.
The
Lelantian
war.
and Macedon in the north. Here in the north the peninsula of Chalcidice,
with its numerous hospitable bays, attracted in early times a great number of
colonists from Chaicis, who founded cities in every promising spot, and named
the whole district after their mother city, Chalcidice.
The colonies of Eretria, the rival sister of Chaicis, were hardly less nu-
merous, and were for the most part situate on the promontory of Pallene and
round the foot of Mount Athos.
These two Euboean towns, Chaicis and Eretria, were the most enterprising
Ionic cities in European Greece, and were perhaps scarcely inferior in this
respect to Samos and Miletus in Asia. Their ships covered the seas and carried
the native copper ore of Euboea, for which Chaicis was so famous, and from
which its name was derived, to the coasts of Asia Minor, Thrace, Italy, and
Sicily, bringing back in exchange the products of every land,—the gold of the
East, the electrum of Lydia, and especially silver from the highlands of Chal-
cidice, in which district no less than thirty-two towns had been founded
from Chaicis alone, not to mention those of which Eretria was the mother
city.
From Ionia, possibly through Samos1, the Euboeans imported the standard
by which they weighed their silver. This standard was the light Assyrio-
Babylonic gold mina with its shekel or stater of about 130 grs. The Euboeans,
having little or no gold, transferred the weight used in Asia for gold to their
own silver, raising it slightly at the same time to a maximum of 135 grs., and
from Euboea it soon spread over a large portion of the Greek world by means
of the widely extended commercial relations of the enterprising Euboean
cities.
This may have taken place towards the close of the eighth century, and
before the war which broke out at the end of that century between Chaicis and
Eretria, nominally for the possession of the fields of Lelantum, which lay
between the two rival cities.
The war, which goes by the name of the Lelantian war, was in reality a
contest for maritime supremacy, in which the commercial interests of both
towns were at stake. The evidence of this is the universal character which it
assumed. Nearly all the important states of Greece took one side or the
other, and the whole Aegean sea became one vast theatre on which the quarrel
was to be fought out. Corinth took the side of Chaicis, Corcyra that of
Eretria. In Asia Minor Samos and Miletus also took opposite sides.
Such a separation of all Greece into two hostile camps, we must suppose to
have been occasioned by the clashing commercial interests of neighbouring
states, the advantages of some being more closely bound up with one party,
those of others with the other.
The Lelantian commercial war shows what frequent intercourse there must
have been in the eighth century between Euboea and the opposite coasts
of Asia.
From what Asiatic port the Euboeans received the Babyionic gold weight is
doubtful, but there is some reason to think that it may have been Samos.
1 Num. Ghron., 1875, p. 272.