Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, BOOK IV. AN ACCOUNT OF COUNTRIES, NATIONS, SEAS, TOWNS, HAVENS, MOUNTAINS, RIVERS, DISTANCES, AND PEOPLES WHO NOW EXIST OR FORMERLY EXISTED., CHAP. 21.

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CHAP. 21.—EUBŒA.

Eubœa¹ itself has also been rent away from Bœotia; the channel of the Euripus, which flows between them, being so narrow as to admit of the opposite shores being united by a bridge². At the south, this island is remarkable for its two promontories, that of Geræstus³, which looks towards Attica, and that of Caphareus⁴, which faces the Hellespont; on the north it has that of Cenæum⁵. In no part does this island extend to a greater breadth than forty miles, while it never contracts to less than two. In length it runs along the whole coast of Bœotia, extending from Attica as far as Thessaly, a distance of 150 miles⁶. In circumference it measures 365, and is distant from the Hellespont, on the side of Caphareus, 225 miles. The cities for which it was formerly famous were, Pyrrha, Porthmos, Nesos, Cerinthos⁷, Oreum, Dium, Ædepsos⁸, Ocha, and Œchalia; at present it is ennobled by those of Chalcis⁹ (opposite which, on the mainland, is Aulis), Geræstus¹⁰, Eretria¹¹, Carystus¹², Oritanum, and Artemisium¹³. Here are also the Fountain of Arethusa¹⁴, the river Lelantus, and the warm springs known as Ellopiæ; it is still better known, however, for the marble of Carystus. This island used formerly to be called Chalcodontis and Macris¹⁵, as we learn from Dionysius and Ephorus; according to Aristides, Macra; also, as Callidemus says, Chalcis, because copper was first discovered here. Menæchmus says that it was called Abantias¹⁶, and the poets generally give it the name of Asopis.

1 Now called Eubœa, as also Egripo, or Negropont,—a corruption of the former word and "pont," "a bridge."

2 Hardouin speaks of this as existing in his time, 1670, and being 250 feet in length. It is supposed to have been first constructed about B.C. 411, for the purpose of uninterrupted communication with Bœotia.

3 Now Capo Mandili.

4 Now Kavo Doro, or Xylofago.

5 Now Lithadha, with a mountain 2837 feet above the sea.

6 These measurements are not exactly correct. The length from north to south is about ninety miles; the extreme breadth across, thirty, and in one part, not more than four miles.

7 Still extant in the time of Strabo, who speaks of it as an inconsiderable place.

8 Its site is now called Lipso. It contained warm baths sacred to Hercules, and used by the Dictator Sylla. They are still to be seen.

9 Now Egripo, or Negropont, having given name to the rest of the island. The Euripus is here only forty yards across, being crossed by a bridge, partly of stone, partly of wood. The poet Lycophron and the orator Isæus were natives of this place, and Aristotle died here.

10 Near the promontory of that name, now Capo Mandili. In the town there was a famous temple of Poseidon, or Neptune. According to Hardouin, the modern name is Iastura.

11 One of the most powerful cities of Eubœa. It was destroyed by the Persians under Darius, and a new town was built to the south of the old one. New Eretria stood, according to Leake, at the modern Kastri, and old Eretria in the neighbourhood of Vathy. The tragic poet Achæus, a contemporary of Æschylus, was born here; and a school of philosophy was founded at this place by Menedemus, a disciple of Plato.

12 Now Karysto, on the south of the island, at the foot of Mount Ocha, upon which are supposed to have been its quarries of marble. There are but few remains of the ancient city. The historian Antigonus, the comic poet Apollodorus, and the physician Diocles, were natives of this place.

13 Probably on the promontory of the same name. It was off this coast that the Greek fleet engaged that of Xerxes, B.C. 480.

14 There were tame fish kept in this fountain; and its waters were sometimes disturbed by volcanic agency. Leake says that it has now totally disappeared.

15 From the fact of its producing copper, and of its being in shape long and narrow.

16 Strabo remarks, that Homer calls its inhabitants Abantes, while he gives to the island the name of Eubœa. The poets say that it took its name from the cow (βοῦς) Io, who gave birth to Epaphus on this island.

The Natural History. Pliny the Elder. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. London. Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 1855.

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- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), AEDEPSUS
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Pliny the Elder, The Natural History
John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A., Ed.

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CHAP. 21.—EUBŒA.

Pliny the Elder, The Natural History John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A., Ed.

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CHAP. 21.—EUBŒA.

Pliny the Elder, The Natural History
John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A., Ed.