OLYNTHUS, an ancient city at the head of the Gulf of Torone, in Chalcidice, near the neck of the peninsula of Pallene, about 6o stadia (7 or 8 m.) from Potidaea. It may have been a colony of Chalcis, and struck coins early, but the district be longed to a Thracian tribe, the Bottiaeans, who held the town till 479 B.c., when the Persian general Artabazus, on his return from escorting Xerxes to the Hellespont, suspecting that a revolt from the Great King was meditated, slew the inhabitants and handed the town over to Greeks from Chalcidice. Olynthus. thus became a Greek polis, but it remained insignificant in the lists of the Delian League until 432. King Perdiccas of Macedon added to its population the inhabitants of Chalcidian towns in the neigh bourhood (Thucyd. i. 58). Henceforward the chief Hellenic city west of the Strymon, it revolted from Athens, formed a base for Brasidas's expedition (424) and was never again reduced. In the 4th century it was the head of the Chalcidic League which may be traced back to the peace of Nicias (421), when the Chalcidians acted in common and were enrolled as allies of Argos. The motive for its formation is almost certainly to be found in fear of Athens. Coins of the league can be dated as early as one specimen may go back to 415-42o. After the Peloponnesian War the league concluded an important treaty, about 39o, with Amyntas, king of Macedon (the father of Philip), and by 382 it had absorbed most of the Greek cities west of the Strymon, and even held Pella, the chief city in Macedonia. But in this
year Sparta was induced by an embassy from Acanthus and Apollonia, not yet included by the league, to attack; and Olynthus, after three years of indecisive warfare, formally dissolved the confederacy (379). Chalcidians, however, appear among the Athenian naval confederacy of 378-377. Twenty years later, in the reign of Philip, the power of Olynthus is asserted by Demos thenes to have been much greater than before the Spartan ex pedition, and the league included thirty-two cities. When war broke out between Philip and Athens (357), Olynthus was at first in alliance with Philip. Subsequently, it concluded an alli ance with Athens ; but in spite of all the efforts of the Athenians and their orator, Demosthenes, Philip razed it in 348.
BouoGRAPHT.—Herodotus viii. 127; Thucydides i. 58; Xenophon, Hell. v. 2; Demosthenes Olynthiacs and De fals. leg 263-6 ; Diodorus xvi. 53, 2; Hicks Manual of Greek Inscriptions Nos. 74, 81 Head, His toric Numorum s.v.; British Museum Catalogue of Greek Coins, s.v. Excavations by an American mission are in progress.