STYRA
STYRA (
τὰ Στύρα: Eth.
Στυρεύς:
Stura), a town of Euboea, on the W. coast, N. of Carystus, and nearly opposite the promontory of Cynosura in Attica.
The town stood near the shore in the inner part of the bay, in the middle of which is the island Aegileia, now called
Sturanísi. Styra is mentioned by Homer along with Carystus (
Il. 2.539). Its inhabitants were originally Dryopians, though they denied this origin (
Hdt. 8.46;
Paus. 4.34.11), and claimed to be descended from the demus of Steiria in Attica. (
Strab. x. p.446.)
In the First Persian War (B.C. 490) the Persians landed at Aegileia, which belonged to Styra, the prisoners whom they had taken at Eretria. (
Hdt. 6.107.)
In the Second Persian War (B.C. 480, 479) the Styrians fought at Artemisium, Salamis, and Plataeae. They sent two ships to the naval engagements, and at Plataeae they and the Eretrians amounted together to 600 men. (
Hdt. 8.1,
46,
9.28;
Paus. 5.23.2.) They afterwards became the subjects of Athens, and paid a yearly tribute of 1200 drachmae. (
Thuc. 7.57; Franz,
Elem. Epigr. Gr. n. 49.) The Athenian fleet was stationed here B.C. 356. (Dem.
c. Mid. p. 568.) Strabo relates (x. p. 446) that the town was destroyed in the Maliac war by the Athenian Phaedrus, and its territory given to the Eretrians; but as the
Maliac war is not mentioned elsewhere, we ought probably to substitute
Lamiac for it. (Leake,
Northern Greece, vol. ii. pp. 422, 432.)
