Archaic Eretria: A Political and Social History from the Earliest Times to 490 BC

Abstract

It is now sixty-one years since the only study in English of the history of Eretria was written. It was never published, and access to it has been practically impossible for students of Euboian history.¹ Since then there have been a few monograph studies of other Euboian cities in English, but only one has appeared in published form.² There have, of course, been a small number of journal articles on special topics dealing with Euboia but those who wish to pursue Euboian studies must turn to the more plentiful material in French and German, though even in these languages it is almost exclusively to be found in the journal literature. The Swiss scholar Denis Knoepfler has been the author of a massive amount of work on Eretria, especially its epigraphy and related topics. No researcher on Eretria can possibly ignore his contribution.The neglect of Euboia is hard to justify in view of the increasing body of evidence indicating that Euboian cities played a significant role in the history of Greece, especially during the Archaic period. Their part in the so-called Second Colonial Movement to Italy and Sicily has long been acknowledged, but the results of the excavations at Lefkandi and Eretria itself have demonstrated that Euboia had a flourishing civilisation that goes back to the tenth century and even earlier.The principal objective of this study is to exploit the considerable body of evidence embedded in the literary record, along with the results of archaeological investigations at and around Eretria, to argue that the city played a quasi-hegemonial role in the affairs of central Greece and the Aegean during the last half of the sixth century and probably even earlier, while also attempting a re-construction of its constitutional and monumental antiquities.