Chalkis/Halkida, Greece

A city of the Greek island of Euboea. Prominent, with Eretria, in early colonizing activity in Central and South Italy and northern Greece. It lay at the narrowest point of the straits between Euboea and the mainland of Boeotia.

The name is preserved from antiquity and is derived from the Greek χαλκος (copper, bronze), though there is no trace of any mines in the neighbourhood. Chalcis was peopled by an Ionic stock which early developed great industrial and colonizing activity. In the 8th and 7th centuries BC, it founded thirty townships on the peninsula of Chalcidice, and several important cities in Sicily. Its mineral produce, metal-work, purple and pottery not only found markets among these settlements, but were distributed over the Mediterranean in the ships of Corinth and Samos.





































































































































































































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