Chalkida has little to commend it to foreign visitors. Within easy day-trip distance from Athens, it is a popular weekend destination for Athenians out for a fresh fish meal by the sea. But why would I want to go there? Eleni, whose flat I was staying in in Athens, seemed surprised. It is a modern, rather non-descript town, not very attractive. Yet in the Middle Ages, this town, known as Negropont, was perhaps the most important overseas possession of the Venetian Republic. It was the republic’s key naval base in the eastern Mediterranean, from which it controlled the Aegean, a vital outpost defending Venice’s crucial trading links with the east.
Situated at the end of a spur of the Athens-Salonika railway line, a sign on the dilapidated train station gives the ancient name of the town, Chalcis. Chalkida is the main town of Euboea, a long, narrow island that stretches along the eastern coast of Greece. At Chalkida, the gap between the island and the mainland, the Euripos Strait, is less than 50 metres, and is spanned by a short bridge. Chalkida has long been famous for the crazy currents that race, swirling through the gap, changing direction every few hours. According to legend, Aristotle, who died in Chalcis, threw himself into the water, exasperated by his inability to explain the phenomenon. A tourist information sign by the bridge gives a technical explanation, which I struggled to understand.
Venice acquired Negropont in the aftermath of the sacking of Constantinople by a Venetian-Frankish force in 1204, along with other choice pieces picked off the body of the prostrate Byzantine Empire. Under Venetian rule, it was a heavily fortified town, surrounded by strong walls. But in 1470 the town fell to the Ottoman Empire. It was a huge blow to the republic, one of its greatest disasters in the long, steady expansion of the Ottomans into Europe.
The Sultan, Mehmet II, conqueror of Constantinople 17 years earlier, was one of the most energetic of all Ottoman rulers. He was noted for his meticulous planning and his attention to logistics. Having amassed a huge fleet and army, he ignored the bridge to the town, and built a pontoon bridge a little to the north. The siege began, Mehmet’s heavy cannon battering the walls. It soon became clear that a breach was imminent. Yet the Captain-General of the Venetian fleet, Nicolo Canal, kept his galleys out of the way. Finally, urged on by his captains, he ordered the fleet to sail down towards the pontoon bridge. Wind and tide were in his galleys’ favour, and they would surely have rammed through it. But Canal lost his nerve and ordered a withdrawal. The watching defenders saw that they had been abandoned. The following day, 12 July, the wall was breached and the Ottoman forces burst in. Still the defenders did not give in, raining roof tiles and boiling water on to the attackers. Their revenge was savage, almost the entire population being massacred. The governor, Paolo Enrizzo, surrendered on condition that he be allowed to keep his head. The Sultan obliged him by having his body severed at the waist.
On his return to Venice, Canal was arrested, tried and exiled. Many considered he was lucky not to be executed. He had had a long, illustrious career, mainly as a diplomat. He was not a military man. In any case, in the 15th century, when the Ottoman Empire, rampant and at the height of its power, seriously set out to seize an objective, no European power could stand against it. Mehmet the Conqueror had set his sights on Negropont, and he was not going to be denied.
The fall of Negropont, not long after the capture of Constantinople, left the whole of the eastern Mediterranean vulnerable to the expanding Ottomans. It was a catastrophe not only for Venice, but with wider significance for Europe. Gioachino Rossini wrote an opera based on the siege, Maometto II, first performed in Naples in 1820. Two years later, a revised version was performed in Venice, this time with a happy ending. In 1826, a new version was performed in Paris, no longer set in the battle for Negropont, but in the struggle between Ottomans and Greeks, under the name Le Siège de Corinthe. This was a shrewd move, nodding to the philhellenism current in Paris during the Greek independence war. It was also a homage to Lord Byron, a romantic hero for poets, artists and composers around Europe following his death in Greece in 1824. Byron had written a poem entitled The Siege of Corinth. The fall of Negropont had dropped out of European consciousness, superseded by later wars.
Chalkida became part of newly independent Greece in 1832. By the end of the 19th century, most of the old town of the Venetians and the Ottomans, as well as the surrounding walls, had been torn down. Very little is left today. In what is still known as the kastro district, despite the absence of the old walls, is the basilica of Ayia Paraskevi. Following the return of the Greek emperors to Constantinople, half a century after its sacking by the Crusaders, the seat of the Latin Patriarch in the east had been moved to Negropont. The western style is evident in the architecture of the basilica, a strange hotch-potch of Byzantine and Gothic. The building survived Ottoman rule because, like so many Byzantine churches, it was converted into a mosque under their rule. Facing the basilica is the former residence of the Venetian bailo, the governor, in a very dilapidated state, but in the process of restoration when I visited. I looked in the front entrance. Workmen were sitting around, having a break. But amongst the ruin, the high ceiling and arches running through the hallway attest to the one-time opulence of the building. Close-by the basilica is a closed 15th century mosque, without its minaret, as usual. In front of it is an ornate Ottoman fountain, which would be beautiful were it not covered in graffiti, typical of the degree of interest and respect for the Ottoman-era heritage in Greece.
On the hill on the mainland side of the bridge, across from the kastro, is the 17th century Karababa fortress, built by the Ottomans. As I walked in the gateway, a large pack of feral dogs resting under the trees raised their heads. Some of them began to bark and growl. As I stood their uncertainly, a couple of large beasts started to walk purposefully, menacingly towards me. I beat a retreat. But I wanted to look round the fort. I looked around for weapons. Armed with a heavy stick and a few rocks, I walked gingerly back in, but this time I made my way quickly away from the dogs, behind some buildings and a make-shift stage, presumably left over from some kind of performance. Out of sight of the dogs, I found a way up on to the ledge that went around the inside of the wall of the fort. Safe now, I walked along to the far end of the castle.
There, among the arches of the tower at the end of the fort, is a marvellous museum. It contains exhibits from the Byzantine, through the Venetian and Ottoman periods, ending with the early period of Greek independence (another museum in the town covers the ancient period). I was met at the entrance by a huge man, looking very much like a hairy biker type. He gave me a full tour. The exhibits were organised by period, with explanations in English as well as Greek. Belying his appearance, my guide quickly proved to be highly knowledgeable, as he explained to me the development of Byzantine architecture as revealed in the exhibits.
Most fascinating of all to me, in the Venetian section were several carvings of the Lion of Saint Mark, symbol of Venice. They had once been fixed into the town walls. The Ottomans, as elsewhere, were untroubled by the presence of the symbols of the former rulers, and had left them in place. Later, they had been saved when the walls were demolished. Some of them were very large, much larger than I had seen in most Venetian cities, indicating the importance of Negropont. But particularly extraordinary were two examples of lions that were unmistakably of Chinese design. Of course, Venice had trading links with China, strung out along the Silk Road. My guide told me that Marco Polo was believed to have visited Negropont. But I had never before seen such clear evidence of Chinese influence on Venice, and, no less, on the symbol of the republic.
Among the exhibits are engravings of Chalkida during the Venetian and Ottoman periods. Both show a fine city, surrounded by walls, the first with church steeples, the second with minarets. I asked my guide when it had happened, who had pulled down the walls and the fine buildings, was it the Turks? No, it was the Greeks! What had possessed them? The town today, a mixture of modern blocks and dilapidated wrecks, makes me almost despair. Not for the first, nor the last time in Greece, I wondered what moved people to trash so many fine old towns? When I mentioned it to Eleni, in Athens, she responded by recalling an interview she had seen with a leading politician from Venice. Asked what Venetians would do if their city was finally engulfed by the sea, he replied that they would build something else. For Eleni, this was a good response; the new replaces the old. Yet no one could persuade me that the travesty of modern Chalkida is an improvement on what came before, any more than I could look on the loss of Venice with equanimity.
The rich Venetian and Ottoman heritage that graces other parts of the Balkans has been effaced in much of Greece, its remnants left to decay. The relics of the ancient and Byzantine worlds are assiduously preserved, but little value appears to have been attached to the Venetian and Ottoman inheritance. Maybe the excellent museum in Chalkida is evidence of a change of heart. Certainly my guide was keen to preserve all of his town’s heritage, through all its stages. He had given me an outstanding tour, and was a font of expertise. As I left, I asked him whether he was an archaeologist by profession. ‘Oh no’, he chuckled, ‘I am just the security guard.’
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