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Wellsprings

Chalcis

The chief city of the island of Euboea—a prosperous colonizing power in the archaic age, and the place where Aristotle died in 322 BCE after fleeing Athens.

12 most-discussed ideas

Chalcis through the eras

Archaic Age

One of the leading maritime cities of early Greece, Chalcis on Euboea grew rich on its metalwork and bronze, and together with its neighbor and rival Eretria sent out colonies across the Mediterranean—to the Chalcidice peninsula that bears its name, and to settlements in Sicily and southern Italy. Its long struggle with Eretria over the fertile Lelantine Plain was remembered as one of the great wars of the archaic world.

Classical Age

Chalcis spent much of the classical period within the Athenian sphere, garrisoned after Athens crushed a Euboean revolt in 446 BCE. Its place in the history of ideas came at the very close of the era: when anti-Macedonian feeling surged in Athens after Alexander's death, Aristotle withdrew in 322 BCE to Chalcis—his mother's native city—and died there that same year, declining, as the story goes, to let Athens 'sin twice against philosophy.'

Hellenistic Age

Commanding the narrow Euripus strait, Chalcis became one of the 'three fetters of Greece'—the key fortresses through which the Macedonian Antigonid kings held the country. It remained a coveted strategic prize until the Romans defeated Macedon and proclaimed the freedom of the Greeks in the early second century BCE.

Teachers who lived here

Works composed here

Ideas shaped here

Concepts most frequently discussed in the works composed at Chalcis. Click any to trace the idea across time and place.

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