KARYSTOS
S Euboia, Greece.
At modern
Palaiochora under Castel Rosso hill, over a km inland
from the N shore of the great bay. Sparse Neolithic and
Early Helladic finds occur at half a dozen nearby spots.
The Dryopian town probably dates from the Dark Ages.
It stood Persian siege in 490 B.C. (the alleged traces of
city walls are uncertain), but in 480 contributed to
Xerxes' fleet, and so was ravaged by the Greeks. Karystos
entered the Delian League after war with Athens, and
revolted with the other Euboians in 411. The only Classical remains are the walls at Platanisto. In 411 or after
the Lamian War the town probably lost territory to
Eretria and by ca. 290 joined the Euboian League. Later
3d c. coins show a pro-Macedonian tyrant and in 196
B.C. Karystos shared Eretria's fall to Rome.
The vogue at Rome for greenish Karystian marble, begun possibly by Mamurra, revivified the area, its prosperity rising to a peak under Hadrian. Dozens of quarries
are known, though mostly for local stone, especially NW
of Marmari (Strabo's Marmarion) and above Karystos
where unfinished columns 13 m long may still be seen
near Myloi. Monumental buildings spread now if not before to the coast. A four-stepped heptastyle peripteral
Ionic temple of the 2d c. has been excavated there.
Many marble and poros blocks, including a battered
Roman pedimental relief, were built into the 14th c.
Venetian coastal fort, the Bourtzi.
The port of Geraistos to the E, with its Sanctuary of
Poseidon, was on the main route from the Euripos SE
and from Athens NE, and probably had an Athenian
clerouchy. It is referred to from Homer to Procopios, and
finds continue to be made.
The region's most dramatic monument is the megalithic
place of worship atop Mount Ocha, the Dragon House,
where the excavators found sherds inscribed in archaic
Chalkidian script outside, and Classical and Hellenistic
pottery inside. The building is a rectangle ca. 10 x 5 m,
interior dimensions, with a door and two windows in the
S side. The roughly isodomic walls are ca. one m thick.
In the interior the blocks are smoothed; on the exterior
many show a curious rustication. The roof consists of
four superimposed layers of great blocks corbeled inward,
but not meeting, at least today, in the center. (Cf.
Styra.)
Other, comparatively undatable, remains have been
found at Philagra and at Archampolis (perhaps associated with iron mining), and on promontories in the
Karystos and Geraistos bays. Late Roman columnar
members are found in churches near Marmari, Metochi,
and Zacharia.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
F. Geyer,
Topographie und Geschichte
der Insel Euboias (1903); G. A. Papabasileiou, “Anaskaphai en Euboiai,”
Praktika (1908) 101-13, cf. 64; F. Johnson, “The Dragon-Houses of Southern Euboea,”
AJA 29
(1925) 398-412
I; K. A. Gounaropoulos,
Historia tes
Nesou Euboias (n.d.); W. P. Wallace, “The Euboian
League and its Coinage,”
NNM 134 (1956); N. K. Moutsopoulos, “To Drakospito tes Oches,”
To Bouno 217
(1960) 147-63
I; V. Hankey, “A Marble Quarry at Karystos,”
BMBeyrouth 18 (1965) 53ff; L. H. Sackett et al.,
“Prehistoric Euboia . . . ,”
BSA 61 (1966) 33-110
MP;
W. P. Wallace, “A Tyrant of Karystos,”
Essays in Greek
Coinage (ed. C. M. Kraay & G. K. Jenkins, 1968) 201-209; H. I. Mason & M. B. Wallace, “Appius Claudius
Pulcher and the Hollows of Euboia,”
Hesperia 41 (1972)
128-40; D. Knoepfier, “Carystos et les Artemisia d'Amarynthos,”
BCH 96 (1972) 283-301; A. Choremes, “Eideseis ex Euboias,”
AAA 7 (1974) 27-34.
Hom.
Il. 2.539,
Od. 3.174-79;
Hdt. 4.33, 6.99, 8.7, 66,
112, 121, 9.105;
Thuc. 1.98, 3.3, 4.42-43, 7.57, 8.69, 95;
Strab. 444-46;
Livy 31.45, 32.16-17;
Diod. 4.37, 18.11,
19.78; Plin.
HN 4.51, 63-65, 36.48; Dio Chrys.
Or. 7;
Ptol. 3.15.25; Arr.
Anab. 2.1.2; Procop.
Goth. 4.22.27.
M. B. WALLACE
