Now, that I may leave no part of Greece undescribed, we must proceed to the island of Eubœa, which stands close to Athens and Marathon. This island of Eubœa lies in the sea, in front of Greece, and seems to me as though it had once formed a part of the mainland, and had afterwards been separated from it by a strait, for an arm of the sea flows past the mainland there, in the neighbourhood of the city of Chalcis, ebbing and flowing in a narrow channel, confined between banks which reduce it to the size of a rivulet. This strait is called the Euripus. Such is the island of Eubœa. A single beam laid across the strait forms a bridge, which the inhabitants lay across at their pleasure, and then appear to be dwellers on the continent, and walk on foot to the land beyond the strait; but when they remove it, they cross the strait in boats, and again become islanders: so that whether they proceed on foot or on shipboard depends upon the laying down or taking up of a single piece of wood.... The country within this is named (the Peninsula of) Pallene. In ancient times the inhabitants built a wall across the isthmus, which joined the sea at each end, and built there a city, which in former times was called Potidæa, and now Casandria; however, time so ruined all these buildings that when, not long ago, the Huns overran these regions, they captured this cross-wall and city as though in sport, though they never have conducted a siege since the world began. This event, however, gave the Emperor Justinian an opportunity of displaying his goodness and magnanimity: for as he was always wont to repair all the misfortunes which befell him by his own foresight, he turned the most terrible disasters into a source of good fortune by the magnificent works by which he repaired. So here he fortified the city of Pallene, which is the bulwark of the whole country, and the wall across the isthmus, so as to render them quite impregnable and able to defy all attacks. These were his works in Macedonia. Not far from the city of Thessalonica flows the river Rhechius, which passes through a fertile and rich country, and empties itself into the sea at that place. This river flows with a gentle current: its waters are calm and sweet. The neighbouring country is low-lying, well-watered, and forms rich pasture; but was sadly exposed to the inroads of the barbarians, having no fort or place of strength of any kind for a distance of forty miles; wherefore the Emperor built a strong fort on the banks of the river Rhechius where it joins the sea—an entirely new work, to which he gave the name of Artemisium.