CHALCI´TIS
CHALCI´TIS (
Χαλκῖτις).
1.
(Eth.
Χαλκίτης:
Khalki or
Karki) “an island opposite to Chalcedon with copper mines.” (Steph. s. v.
Χαλκῖτις, who cites Artemidorus.)
There is a group of small islands called the
Prince's Isles, in the Propontis, not opposite to Chalcedon, but SE. of that city, and opposite to part of the coast which we may assume to have belonged to Chalcedon. One of these marked
Karki in a map published by the Hydrographical Office of the Admiralty is Chalcitis. Pliny (
5.32) simply mentions Chalcitis.
2.
A tract in Asia Minor in the territory of Erythrae according to Pausanias (
7.5.12), which contained a promontory, in which there were sea baths (as he calls them), the most beneficial to the health of all in Ionia. One of the phylae of Erythrae, the third, derived its name from the Chalcitis.
These inhabitants of the Chalcitis seem to be the Chalcideis of Strabo (p. 644), but the passage of Strabo is not free from difficulty, and is certainly corrupt (see Groskurd's
Transl. of Strabo, vol. iii. p. 23). The Teii and Clazomenii were on the isthmus, and the Chalcideis next to the Teii, but just within the peninsula on which Erythrae stands.
This seems to be Strabo's meaning; and the Chalcideis must have been under the Teii, for Gerae, another place west of Teos, belonged to the Teii.
The distance across the isthmus of Erythrae from the Alexandrium and the Chalcideis to a place on the north side of the isthmus, called Hypocremnos, was 50 stadia according to Strabo; but it is more. This Alexandrium was a grove dedicated to Alexander the Great, where games were celebrated by the community of Ionian cities (
ἀπὸ γοῦ κοινοῦ τῶν Ἰώνων) in honour of Alexander. [
G.L]
