CHALCIS  , the

chief town of the island of Euboea in Greece, situated on the. strait of the Euripus at its narrowest point . The name is preserved from antiquity and is derived from the Greek xaXx6s (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 it founded thirty town-ships on the peninsula of Chalcidice, and several important cities in Sicily (q.v.) . 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 . With the help of these allies Chalcis engaged the rival league of its neighbour Eretria (q.v.) in the so-called Lelantine War, by which it acquired the best agricultural district of Euboea and became the chief city of the island . Early in the 6th century its prosperity was broken by a disastrous war with the Athenians, who expelled the ruling aristocracy and settled a cleruchy on the site . Chalcis subsequently became a member of both the Delian Leagues . In the Hellenistic period it gained inportance as a fortress by which the Macedonian rulers controlled central Greece . It was used by kings Antiochus III. of Syria (192) and Mithradates VI. of Pontus (88) as a base for invading Greece . Under Roman rule Chalcis retained a measure of commercial prosperity; since the 6th century A.D. it again served as a fortress for the protection of central Greece against northern invaders . From 1209 it stood under Venetian control; in 1470 it passed to the Ottomans, who made it the seat of a pasha .

In 1688 it was successfully held against a strong Venetian attack . The

modern town has about 1o,000 inhabitants, and maintains a considerable export trade which received an impetus from the establishment of railway connexion with Athens and Peiraeus (1904) . It is composed of two parts—the old walled town towards, the Euripus, called the Castro, where the Jewish and Turkish families who have remained there mostly dwell; and the more modern suburb that lies outside it, which is chiefly occupied by the Greeks . A part of the walls of the Castro and many of the houses within it were shaken down by the earthquake of 1894; part has been demolished in the widening of the Euripus . The most interesting object is the ,church of St Paraskeve, which was once the chief church of the Venetians; it dates from the Byzantine period, though many of its architectural features are Western . There is also a Turkish mosque, which is now used as a guard-house .