[2673] Hardouin speaks of this as existing in his time, 1670, and being 250 feet in length. It is supposed to have been first constructed about B.C. 411, for the purpose of uninterrupted communication with Bœotia.
[2674] Now Capo Mandili.
[2675] Now Kavo Doro, or Xylofago.
[2676] Now Lithadha, with a mountain 2837 feet above the sea.
[2677] These measurements are not exactly correct. The length from north to south is about ninety miles; the extreme breadth across, thirty, and in one part, not more than four miles.
[2678] Still extant in the time of Strabo, who speaks of it as an inconsiderable place.
[2679] Its site is now called Lipso. It contained warm baths sacred to Hercules, and used by the Dictator Sylla. They are still to be seen.
[2680] Now Egripo, or Negropont, having given name to the rest of the island. The Euripus is here only forty yards across, being crossed by a bridge, partly of stone, partly of wood. The poet Lycophron and the orator Isæus were natives of this place, and Aristotle died here.
[2681] Near the promontory of that name, now Capo Mandili. In the town there was a famous temple of Poseidon, or Neptune. According to Hardouin, the modern name is Iastura.
[2682] One of the most powerful cities of Eubœa. It was destroyed by the Persians under Darius, and a new town was built to the south of the old one. New Eretria stood, according to Leake, at the modern Kastri, and old Eretria in the neighbourhood of Vathy. The tragic poet Achæus, a contemporary of Æschylus, was born here; and a school of philosophy was founded at this place by Menedemus, a disciple of Plato.