ERETRIA
Euboia, Greece.
The ancient city
is partially covered by the modern village of the same
name, some 18 km SE of Chalkis on the S-central coast
of the island. The site is dominated by a prominent acropolis at the N and extends over an area of more than 80
ha, roughly delimited by the course of the ancient city
walls. The archaeological remains are the most extensive
in Euboia.
First mentioned in the Homeric Catalogue of Ships
(
Il. 2.537: Eretria), there is a growing body of evidence
to indicate that the site was occupied throughout most of
the Bronze Age. Problems related to the location of
Strabo's “Old Eretria” (9.2.6)—now thought by some to
be at the nearby site of Lefkandi—still remain unsettled.
With the dawn of the historical period, Eretria—along with its neighbor, Chalkis—appears among the
leading cities of Greece in establishing colonies
abroad. This contributed to a bitter rivalry between
Chalkis and Eretria, manifested at home in a war over
the control of the fertile coastal strip centering upon the
Lelantine plain. The Lelantine War, which seems to have
taken place at or near the end of the 8th c. B.C., may have
resulted in a certain decline in the status of Eretria. But
recent excavations have brought to light considerable evidence of occupation on the site in the 7th and 6th c. Near
the end of the 6th c., Eretria supported the revolt of the
Ionian Greek cities from Persian subjugation. This resulted in the destruction of the city at the hands of
the vengeful Persians in 490 (
Hdt. 6.43-44). Herodotos
(
6.99-101, 119) tells us that the temples were plundered
and burned and many of the inhabitants taken captive
and carried off to Persia. The city seems to have recovered somewhat for it managed to contribute both ships
and men to the Greek forces in 480-479. After the Persian Wars, Eretria became a member of the Delian Confederacy and generally remained loyal to Athens until
411. At that time the Euboian cities revolted, and there
is some evidence to indicate that they formed a league
with Eretria at its head. Eretria supported Sparta through
the balance of the Peloponnesian War but was back on
good terms with Athens by the early 4th c. Thereafter
its allegiance vacillated between Athens and Thebes until—by the end of the 4th c.—it had come under the
thumb of the Macedonians and was to remain so for the
next 100 years or more. Eretria came to be the most important city in Euboia in the late 4th and early 3d c., by
which time its influence extended over most of S Euboia.
The city flourished in the 3d c. and was the home of a
well-known school of philosophy under the direction of
Menedemos. But the great days of Eretria came to an
end with a major destruction at the hands of a Roman-Pergamene coalition in 198 B.C. (
Livy 32.16). Although
the city was rebuilt and the site continued to be occupied
for some time thereafter, no major monuments can be
assigned to this period and it does not seem to have regained its old importance.
Sporadic excavation has been carried out since the
later 19th c. These investigations have uncovered the
remains of numerous graves (including a well-built tomb
of the Macedonian period a short distance to the W of
the ancient town), large stretches of the city wall, a
theater, a gymnasium, a Thesmophorion, a bathing establishment, a fountain-house, a tholos, a number of houses,
and several temples or shrines (dedicated to Apollo
Daphnephoros, Dionysos, and Isis), as well as lesser
monuments. No clear-cut remains of the agora have yet
been reported.
The current excavations have been largely confined
to the areas of the temple of Apollo Daphnephoros
near the center of the ancient town and a major gate in
the NW sector of the city. The Temple of Apollo—now
visible only in its foundations—was first exposed around
the turn of the century, but recent investigations have
clarified its chronology and many details of construction.
A peripteral temple of the Doric order, it seems to have
been erected in the late archaic period (530-520 B.C.)
but was razed shortly thereafter in the Persian destruction of 490. It is to this structure that the well-known
pedimental group of Theseus and Antiope in the Chalkis
Museum belongs. Recent excavation has shown that the
6th c. temple had several precursors including an early
archaic hecatompedon of the Ionic order (670-650 B.C.),
and a small apsidal “shrine” of the 8th c. The latter is
the earliest building yet found at Eretria. All of the
structures in this sequence are thought to have served
in the worship of Apollo Daphnephoros.
One of the most striking monuments at Eretria is the
ancient theater, lying at the SW foot of the acropolis.
A noteworthy feature of the complex is a subterranean
vaulted passage which led by means of a stairway from
the center of the orchestra to the stage building. It is
thought that such an arrangement facilitated the sudden
appearance of actors from the underworld. This structure seems to have been erected in the late 4th c. and
serves as one of the best examples of the Greek theater
during the Hellenistic period. The remains of a small
temple and altar of Dionysos lie a short distance to the
S of the theater.
The site is dominated by the acropolis, from which the
visitor gains a magnificent view of the S Euboian Gulf
and the mainland beyond. Of particular interest here are
the walls and towers which represent some of the best
preserved examples of Classical Greek masonry.
Although there is some evidence of the use of the acropolis during the Mycenaean period, the fortifications probably range in date from no earlier than the archaic period through Hellenistic times.
A line of fortification can be traced intermittently
from the acropolis along the W side of the city to a point
just SW of the theater. Here lies a major gateway (W
Gate) through which the ancient road to Chalkis and the
Lelantine plain must have passed. The most recent
excavators have concentrated much of their efforts upon
the investigation of the W Gate and its environs. These
investigations have shown that the major gate of the
early Classical period (ca. 480 B.C.) overlay a gate and
fortifications of the 7th c., which are among the earliest
known fortifications of post-Bronze Age Greece. To the
S of the W Gate, a complex of burials (both inhumation
and cremation) within a modest architectural setting
has been identified as a heröon. The rich finds from this
area, whose foundation goes back to the 8th c., testify
to the far-flung commercial activities of Eretria at that
time. The heröon seems to have been incorporated into a
Hellenistic structure of palatial proportions (“Palace I”),
which may have belonged to the descendants of those
who were buried in the heröon. An even larger and more
impressive complex (“Palace II”), probably of the 4th c.
B.C., has been exposed farther to the S.
Apart from the pedimental sculpture from the Temple
of Apollo Daphnephoros in the Chalkis Museum, all of
the finds from the excavations at Eretria are now housed
in a small museum on the site.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
F. Geyer,
Topographie und Geschichte
der Insel Euböa (1903); K. Schefold et al., preliminary
reports on current excavations in
AntK 7 (1964)
PI; K.
Schefold, “The Architecture of Eretria,”
Archaeology 21
(1968)
MPI; P. Auberson, “Temple d'Apollon Daphnéphoros,”
Eretria 1 (1968)
PI; I. Metzger, “Die hellenistische Keramik in Eretria,”
Eretria 2 (1969)
I; P. T.
Themelis,
Ἐρετριακά,
ArchEph (1969, publ. 1970)
PI; C.
Bérard, “L'Héroon à la Porte de L'Ouest,”
Eretria 3
(1970)
PI; P. Auberson & K. Schefold,
Führer durch
Eretria (1972)
MP; L. Sackett & M. Popham, “Lefkandi:
A Euboean Town of the Bronze Age and Early Iron
Age,”
Archaeology 25 (1972)
MI.
T. W. JACOBSEN
