18b - The Islands

Summary

EUBOEA

Euboea is the second largest island of the Aegean, nearly half the size of Crete yet, proportionately, far less prosperous. Its importance and the wealth of its major cities derived rather from its position, lying like a scabbard along the eastern flank of central Greece. The landward channel provided a comparatively sheltered waterway over a hundred and fifty miles long from Thessaly to the open sea and the Cyclades, at the mercy of wayward currents and sudden squalls, but far safer than the exposed and inhospitable east coast. The cities which, at the narrows, could command this passage, were able to wax prosperous on more than the farmland they controlled, and were themselves led to prospect by sea north and south. At the north the island lies athwart two principal approaches to Thessaly – the Gulf of Iolcus/Pagasae, and the Maliac Gulf leading to the Spercheus valley. By the narrows at the centre stand the towns at Amarynthus, Eretria, Lefkandi and Chalcis, where a bridge now joins the mainland and where the tides, winds and atmospheric pressure can reverse the swift currents of the Euripus Straits up to fourteen times a day. They face the Asopus valley and the heart of Boeotia with easy access over the broad passes beside Parnes and Pentelicum to Athens. Beyond Marathon the channel opens and past the Attic Diacria the next landfalls are Ceos, Cythnos and the Cyclades.