Our earliest historical intimations represent Chalkis and Eretria as the wealthiest, most powerful, and most enterprising Ionic cities in European Greece,—apparently surpassing Athens, and not inferior to Samos or Miletus. Besides the fertility of the plain Lelantum, Chalkis possessed the advantage of copper and iron ore, obtained in immediate proximity both to the city and to the sea,—which her citizens smelted and converted into arms and other implements, with a very profitable result: the Chalkidic sword acquired a distinctive renown.[272] In this mineral source of wealth several of the other islands shared: iron ore is found in Keôs, Kythnus, and Seriphus, and traces are still evident in the latter island of extensive smelting formerly practised.[273] Moreover, in Siphnus, there were in early times veins of silver and gold, by which the inhabitants were greatly enriched; though their large acquisitions, attested by the magnitude of the tithe[274] which they offered at the Delphian temple, were only of temporary duration, and belong particularly to the seventh and sixth centuries before the Christian era. The island of Naxos too, was at an early day wealthy and populous. Andros, Tênos, Keôs, and several other islands, were at one time reduced to dependence upon Eretria:[275] other islands seem to have been in like manner dependent upon Naxos, which at the time immediately preceding the Ionic revolt possessed a considerable maritime force, and could muster eight thousand heavy-armed citizens,[276]—a very large force for any single Grecian city. Nor was the military force of Eretria much inferior; for in the temple of the Amarynthian Artemis, nearly a mile from the city, to which the Eretrians were in the habit of marching in solemn procession to celebrate the festival of the goddess, there stood an ancient column setting forth that the procession had been performed by no less than three thousand hoplites, six hundred horsemen, and sixty chariots.[277] The date of this inscription cannot be known, but it can hardly be earlier than the 45th Olympiad, or 600 B. C.,—near about the time of the Solonian legislation. Chalkis was still more powerful than Eretria; both were in early times governed by an oligarchy, which among the Chalkidians was called hippobotæ, or horse-feeders,—proprietors probably of most part of the plain called Lelantum, and employing the adjoining mountains as summer pasture for their herds. The extent of their property is attested by the large number of four thousand kleruchs, or out-freemen, whom Athens quartered upon their lands, after the victory gained over them when they assisted the expelled Hippias in his efforts to regain the Athenian sceptre.[278]