This book presents for the first time a history of Eretria during the Archaic Era, the city's most notable period of political importance and Keith Walker examines all the major elements of the city's success. One of the key factors explored is Eretria's role as a pioneer coloniser in both the Levant and the West - its early Aegaen 'island empire' anticipates that of Athens by more than a century, and Eretrian shipping and trade was similarly widespread. Eretria's major, indeed dominant, role in the events of central Greece in the last half of the sixth century, and in the events of the Ionian Revolt to 490 is clearly demonstrated, and the tyranny of Diagoras (c.538-509), perhaps the golden age of the city, is fully examined. Full documentation of literary, epigraphic and archaeological sources (most of which has previously been inaccessible to an English speaking-audience) is provided, creating a fascinating history and valuable resource for the Greek historian.

Eretria, on the island of Euboia, was an early and significant coloniser in both the Levant and in the West. During the period of the Persian advance towards the Aegean, the city was the moving spirit in the Greek resistance to Persian domination. Her democratic government pre-dates that of Athens and given the presence in Eretria of political exiles from Peisistratid Athens, it may have provided the basic model of Kleishthenes' reforms in Attica. This comprehensive and well-argued book is the first detailed history in any language of the city, one of the most prosperous and important of the pre-classical period. This study offers an alternative to the orthodox Athenocentric perception of the history of late sixth-and early fifth-century Greece. Keith Walker's stimulating and thoughtful work seamlessly synthesises evidence from archaeology, philology, textual research, epigraphy and numismatics. The study begins by examining the period from the later Neolithic to the early Iron Age. The following chapters cover the city's rise to prominence in the Archaic era. Throughout there is skilful reconstruction of the complex alliances and enmities of the Greek cities, crucial to understand