rtress by which the Macedonian rulers
controlled central Greece. It was used by kings Antiochus III. of Syria
(192) and Mithradates VI. of Pontus (88) as a base for invading Greece.
Under Roman rule Chalcis retained a measure of commercial prosperity;
since the 6th century A.D. 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 connexion 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, which is now used as a guard-house.

AUTHORITIES.--Strabo vii. fr. 11, x. p. 447; Herodotus v. 77;
Thucydides i. 15; _Corpus Inscr. Atticarum_, iv. (1) 27a, iv. (2) 10,
iv. (2) p. 22; W.M. Leake, _Travels in Northern Greece_ (London,
1835), ii. 254-270; E. Curtius in _Hermes_, x. (1876), p. 220 sqq.; A.
Holm, _Lange Fehde_ (Berlin, 1884); H. Dondorff, _De Rebus
Chalcidensium_ (Gottingen, 1869); for coinage, B.V. Head, _Historia
Numorum_ (Oxford, 1887), pp. 303-5; and art. NUMISMATICS: _Greek_ S
Euboea.

CHALCONDYLES[1] (or CHALCOCONDYLAS), LAONICUS, the only Athenian
Byzantine writer. Hardly anything is known of his life. He wrote a
history, in ten books, of the period from 1298-1463, describing the fall
of the Greek empire and the rise of the Ottoman Turks, which forms the
centre of the narrative, down to the conquest of the Venetians and
Mathias, king of Hungary, by Mahommed II. The capture of Constantinople
he rightly regarded as an historical event of far-reaching importance,
although the comparison of it to the fall of Tro