HISTIAIA
(Orei) Euboia, Greece.
The ancient site can be associated quite confidently with the
prominent terraced hill (Kastro) situated at the very
E limits of the modern village of Orei on the N coast
of the island. In later antiquity the town came to be
known more commonly as Oreos (e.g.,
Strab. 10.1.3),
the name of an old deme in the neighborhood (probably
Molos, a small headland located a few km to the W of
Orei).
Histiaia was the most important Classical town in the
region. Its importance was based not only on its strategic
position overlooking the narrows leading to the North
Euboian Gulf but on its control of the large and fertile
coastal plain on which the city lay. Trial excavation and
surface reconnaissance have demonstrated that the site
was already flourishing in the Bronze Age, and Homer
(
Il. 2.537) testifies to the fertility of the surrounding
plain by describing it as “rich in vines.” Surface finds
suggest that it continued to be occupied during the Early
Iron Age, probably by the Aiolic-speaking Ellopians
or Perrhaibians who seem to have replaced the Homeric
Abantes. In 480 B.C. the city and its environs were overrun by the Persians (
Hdt. 8.23). After the Persian Wars
it became a member of the Delian Confederacy, contributing the rather modest sum of 1/6 talent. In 446 the
Euboians revolted and were promptly reduced by Athens
(
Thuc. 1.114.3); but Histiaia was treated more severely
than the other Euboian cities. (Plut.
Per. 23 attributes
the severity of the puhishment to the Histiaian seizure
of an Athenian ship and the murder of its crew.) Perikles
sent off the existing population of the city to Macedonia
and replaced them with a cleruchy of 1000 (
Diod.
12.22) or 2000 (Theopompos in
Strab. 10.1.3) Athenians who may have temporarily settled at the old site of
Oreos. In any event, the city was commonly referred to
by that name thereafter. The exiled population probably
returned home at the end of the Peloponnesian War in
404; thereafter they seem to have been largely under the
control of Sparta until they joined the Second Athenian
Confederacy in 376-375. Although the city appears to
have become a member (for the first time) of the reconstituted league of Euboian cities in 340, its allegiance during most of the 4th c. seems to have vacillated between
Athens and Macedonia. It was almost exclusively pro-Macedonian during the 3d c., as a result of which it was
attacked in 208 and captured in 199 by a Roman-Pergamene force (
Livy 28.6, 31.46). The Roman garrison was
removed in 194, and—to judge from the wide distribution
of its coinage—Histiaia-Oreos prospered during the first
half of the 3d c. Thereafter little is known of its history,
yet surface finds indicate that the site continued to be inhabited in Roman, Byzantine, and later times. Considerable remains of the later fortifications incorporating a
number of Classical blocks can still be seen at Orei,
while evidence of ancient harbor installations have been
observed at Mobs.
There has been little excavation at Orei. A small trial
excavation produced Early Helladic pottery; a segment
of a house wall, a small cist-grave and pottery, all probably of Middle Helladic date; and Late Helladic pottery.
The foundations of a Late Byzantine church were also
exposed at the S foot of the mound in 1954.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
F. Geyer,
Topographie und Geschichte
der Insel Euböa (1903); A. Georgiades,
Les Ports de la
Grèce dans l'Antiquité (1907)
P; L. Pernier & B. Pace,
“Ricognizioni archeologiche nell' Eubea settentrionale,”
Annuario 3 (1921)
M; A. Philippson,
GL I.2 (1951);
W. Wallace,
The Euboean League and its Coinage
(1956); L. Robert, “Circulation des monnaies d'Histiée,”
Hellenica 11-12 (1960); L. Sackett et al., “Prehistoric
Euboea: Contributions Toward a Survey,”
BSA 61
(1966)
M.
T. W. JACOBSEN
