|
Halkida
The
main town on the island of
Evia (Euboia). Population fifty thousand.
Chalcis
or Chalkida, Halkida, Halkis or
Chalkis (Greek,
Modern: Χαλκίδα, Ancient/Katharevousa:
-is), the chief town of the island of
Euboea
in
Greece,
situated on the strait of the
Euripus
at its narrowest point. (Sometimes it is spelled "Chalkis",
which is more faithful to the original
Greek
spelling "Χαλκίς". The reason why a "c" has replaced the "k"
is that, as so often happens, we got the word only
indirectly from Greek via
Latin.)
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.
With the
help of these allies, Chalcis engaged the rival league of
its neighbour
Eretria
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 BC,
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
BC) and
Mithradates VI of Pontus
(88
BC) as a base for invading
Greece.
Under Roman
rule, Chalcis retained a measure of commercial prosperity;
since the
6th century AD
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 10,000 inhabitants, and maintains a
considerable export trade which received an impetus from the
establishment of railway connection 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.
By now Chalkis has
about 100,000 inhabitants. The old walls, near the Castro of
Kara-Baba (Black Father in Turkish) by the sea do not exist
anymore. Also the big Jewish comunity is reduced, after the
II W.War deportation. The town is now connected to the
continental Greece by a new bridge in the southern and the
western part.
In the late
1990s,
immigrants from another state landed near in the area and
entered illegally.
Chalkida has
schools, lyceums, gymnasia, banks, a post office, a port in
the northern part, beaches and squares
(plateies).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalkida
Vacancies in
Halkida
halkida01
halkida02
halkida03
See also:
Evia |