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Total results on 29/8/2001: 66 Chalcidice
A district of Macedonia, between the Sinus Thermaicus and Strymonicus. The lower part of it formed three peninsulas--Phlegra or Pallene, Sithonia, and Athos. The small town of Chalcis gave name to this district.
Large peninsula southeast of Macedon,
in the northwestern Aegean Sea
looking somehow like a hand with three fingers.
Chalcidice was also the name of the region of the island of Euboea
around the city of Chalcis.
In fact, the Thracian peninsula owed its name to the fact the the first Greek
settlers in the area came from Chalcis
(and Eretria, a nearby city
of Euboea) toward the VIIIth
century B. C., founding such cities as Mende,
Torone, Scione.
Bernard Suzanne (page last updated 1998), ed.
This text is cited July 2003 from the Plato and his dialogues URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.
Chalcidice (he Chalkidike, Ptol. iii. 13. § 11; Eth. and Adj. Chalkideus),
the name applied to the whole of the great peninsula, lying southward of the ridge
of Mt. Cissus (Khortiatzi), between the Thermaic and Strymonic Gulf.
It terminates in three prongs, running out into the Aegaean Sea, called respectively
Acte, Sithonia, and Pallene, the first being the most easterly, and the latter
the most westerly. The peninsula of Acte, which terminates with Mt. Athos, rising
out of the sea precipitously to the height of nearly 6,400 feet, is rugged and
clothed with forests, which leave only a few spots suitable for cultivation. The
Middle or Sithonian peninsula (Sithonia: Longos), is also hilly and woody,
though in a less degree. The peninsula of Pallene (Pallene: Kassandhra),
was pre-eminent for its rich and highly cultivated territory. The gulf between
Acte and Sithonia was called the Singitic, and that between Sithonia and Pallene
the Toronaic or Mecybernaean.
It must be recollected that the original Chalcidice, though the name
has been extended in consequence of the influence which the people of their Chalcidic
race enjoyed during the meridian period of Grecian history, did not comprehend
Crossaea, nor the districts of Acanthus and Stageirus, colonies of Andrus, nor
that of Potidaea, a colony of Corinth, nor even Olynthus or the territory around
it to the N., which was occupied by a people who had been driven out of Bottiaeis
W. of the Lydias in the early times of the Macedonian monarchy.
The principal possession of the Chalcidian settlers from Euboea (Strab.
x. p. 447) in the earliest time of their migration, probably in the 7th century
B.C., seems to have been the Sithonian headland, with its port and fortress Torone;
from thence they extended their power inland, until at length they occupied the
whole of Mygdonia to the S. of the ridges which stretched W. from the mountain
range at the head of the Singitic gulf (Nizvoro) together with Crossaea. Artabazus,
on his return from the Hellespont, having reduced Olynthus, together with some
other places which had revolted from Xerxes, slew all the Bottiaei who had garrisoned
Olynthus, and gave up the place to the Chalcidians. We find the Bottiaei joined,
on two occasions, with the Chalcidians as allies (Thuc. i. 65, ii. 79), and one
of their silver coins with the legend Bottiaion is precisely similar, both in
type and fabric, to those of the Chalcidians, impressed with the head of Apollo
and his lyre (comp. Eckhel, vol. ii. p. 70). At the instigation of Perdiccas,
the Chalcidians made war upon the Athenians who held Potidaea and other towns
in their neighbourhood, and were successful in more than one engagement (Thuc.
ii. 79). Brasidas was indebted to their cooperation for his first successes (Thuc.
iv. 83), and it was to his expedition into Thrace that the Chalcidian republics
owed their final independence. (Thuc. v. 18.) After the Peloponnesian war, in
consequence of the complaints of the Apollonians of Chalcidice and Acanthians,
the Lacedaemonians sent an army against Olynthus, which, after losing two of its
commanders, succeeded in the 4th campaign (B.C. 379) in reducing the city to submission
(Xen. Hell. v. 8). The history of Chalcidice, after the supremacy which
Olynthus obtained over its other towns, follows the fortunes of that city.
Ptolemy divides the whole peninsula into two parts, Chalcidice and
Paralia (for so the word which appears as Paraxia in the printed copies should
be read). Paralia contained all the maritime country between the bay of Thessalonica,
and Derrhis, the Cape of Sithonia: thus the W. coast of Sithonia was at that time
included in Paralia and the E. in Chalcidice, together with Acanthus, the entire
peninsula of Acte, and all the coast land in the Strymonic gulf as far N. as Bromiscus,
with the exception of Stageira.
An account of the different Chalcidian towns will be found under the
separate heads; beginning from the W. they are Aeneia near the cape, which marks
the entrance of the inner Thermaic gulf, Gigonus, Antigoneia and Potidaea. Between
these towns lay the territory called Crossaea. In Pallene were the towns of Saxe,
Mende, Scione, Therambos, Aege, Neapolis, Aphytis, either wholly or partly colonies
from Eretria. In Sithonia were Mecyberna, Sermyle, Galepsus, Torone, Sarte, Singus,
Pilorus, Assa, all or most of them of Chalcidian origin. At the head of the Toronaic
gulf in the interior of Chalcidice lay Olynthus, Apollonia, Scolus, Spartolus,
Angeia, Miacorus or Milcorus. On the scanty spaces, admitted by the mountain ridge
which ends in Athos, were planted some Thracian and Pelasgic settlements of the
same inhabitants as those who occupied Lemnos and Imbros, with a mixture of a
few Chalcidians, while the inhabitants spoke both Pelasgic and Hellenic. Near
the narrow isthmus which joins this promontory to Thrace, and along the NW. coast
of the Strymonic gulf were the considerable towns of Sane, Acanthus, Stageira
and Argilus, all colonies from Andros, to which may be added Stratonice, Bromiscus,
and Arethusa (Grote, Hist. of Greece, vol. iv. p. 31 ; Leake, Trav.
in Northern Greece, vol. iii.; Griesebach, Reisen, vol. ii. pp.
6-16.)
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
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