time with Naxos (B. C. 735), and before Syracuse. (Seymn. Ch. 271-276; Strab. vi. p. 269.) It is impossible to reconcile the two accounts, but that of Thucydides is probably the most trustworthy. According to this the foundation of Megara may probably be placed about 726 B. C. Of its earlier history we have scarcely any information, but it would appear to have attained to a flourishing condition, as 100 years after its foundation it sent out, in its turn, a colony to the other end of Sicily, where it founded the city of Selinus, which was destined to rise to far greater power than its parent city. (Thuc. vi. 4; Scymn. Ch. 291; Strab. vi. p. 272.)

the plain loses itself in a gradual ascent. The city stood on a low hill with a double summit, on each of which there was an acropolis, one named CARIA (Kapía), and the other ALCATHOЕ ('Aλkalón), the former probably being on the eastern, and the latter on the western height, upon which the modern village is chiefly situated. Immediately below the city was a port-town named NISAEA (Nioaia and Nioaía), the port being formed by an island called MINOA (Miva). The city was connected with its port-town by Long Walls

II. HISTORY.

history of Megara. According to the Megarians, There were two traditions respecting the early the town owed its origin to Car, the son of Phoroneus, who built the citadel called Caria and the temples of Demeter called Megara, from which the place derived its name. (Paus. i. 39. § 5, i. 40. § 6.) Twelve generations afterwards Lelex came from Egypt and gave the inhabitants the name of Leleges, whence we read in Ovid (Met. vii. 443):—

"Tutus ad Alcathoen, Lelegeia moenia, limes Composito Scirone patet."

Lelex was succeeded by his son Cleson, the latter by his son Pylas, whose son Sciron married the daughter of Pandion, king of Athens. But Nisus, the son of Pandion, disputing with Sciron the possession of Megara, Aeacus, who had been called in as arbiter, assigned the kingdom to Nisus and his posterity, and to Sciron the command in war. Nisus was succeeded by Megareus, the son of Poseidon, who had married Iphinoë, the daughter of Nisus; and Megareus was followed by his son Alcathons, who built the other citadel named after him. Such was the account of the Megarians, who purposely suppressed the story of the capture of their city by Minos during the reign of Nisus. (Paus. i. 39. §§ 5, 6, i. 41. § 5.)

Nothing more is known of Megara till the period of its destruction by Gelon of Syracuse, who, after a long siege, made himself master of the city by a capitulation; but, notwithstanding this, caused the bulk of the inhabitants to be sold into slavery, while he established the more wealthy and noble citizens at Syracuse. (Herod. vii. 156; Thuc. vi. 4.) Among the persons thus removed was the celebrated comic poet Epicharmus, who had received his education at Megara, though not a native of that city. (Suid. s. v. 'Enixapuos; Diog. Laert. viii. 3.) According to Thucydides, this event took place 245 years after the foundation of Megara, and may therefore be placed about 481 B. C. It is certain that Megara never recovered its power and independence. Thucydides distinctly alludes to it as not existing in his time as a city, but repeatedly mentions the locality, on the sea-coast, which was at that time occupied by the Syracusans, but which the Athenian general Lamachus proposed to make the head-quarters of their fleet. (Thuc. vi. 49, 96.) From this time we meet with repeated mention of a place named Megara or Megaris (Scyl. p. 4. § 6), which it seems impossible to separate from Hybla, and it is probable that the two were, in fact, identical. [These notices are discussed under HYBLA, No. 2.] The site of this later Megara or Hybla may be fixed, with little doubt, at the mouth of the river Alabus (Cantaro); but there seems much reason to suppose that the ancient city, the original Greek colony, was situated almost close to the remarkable promontory now occupied by the city of Agosta or Augusta.* It is difficult to believe that this position, the port of which is at least equal to that of Syracuse, while the peninsula itself has the same advantages as that of Ortygia, should have been wholly neglected in ancient times; and such a station would have admirably served the purposes for which Lamachus urged upon his brother generals the occupation of the vacant site of Megara. (Thuc. vi. 49.)[E.H.B.] | ME'GARA (Tà Méyapa, Megara -ōruin, some-port-town which he built. When Minos attacked times Megara -ae: the territory Meyapis, sometimes Meyaрich, sc. y: Eth. Meyapeús, Megarensis: Adj. Meyaρikós), a city in Greece Proper.

I. SITUATION.

The city of Megara is situated rather more than a mile from the Saronic gulf, in a plain about 6 or 7 miles in length, and the same in breadth, bounded to the westward by the range of the Geraneian mountains, to the eastward by the range which terminates in the mountains called Kerata or the Horns, and to the south by the sea; while on the north

* The modern city of this name dates only from the thirteenth century, being founded in 1229 by the emperor Frederic II., from whom it derives its

name.

The other tradition, which was preserved by the Boeotians and adopted by the rest of Greece, differs widely from the preceding one. In the reign of Pylas, Pandion being expelled from Athens by the Metionidae, fled to Megara, married the daughter of Pylas, and succeeded his father-in-law in the kingdom. (Paus. i. 39. § 4; Apollod. iii. 15.) The Metionidae were in their turn driven out of Athens; and when the dominions of Pandion were divided among his four sons, Nisus, the youngest, obtained Megaris. The city was called after him Nisa (Níoa), and the same name was given to the

Nisus, Megareus, son of Poseidon, came from Onchestus in Boeotia to assist the latter, and was buried in the city, which was called after him Megara. The name of Nisa, subsequently Nisaea, was henceforth confined to the port-town. (Paus. i. 39. §§ 4, 6.) But even the inhabitants of Megara were sometimes called Nisaei, to distinguish them from the Megarians of Sicily, their colonists (Theocr. Id xii. 27.) Through the treachery of his daughter Scylla, Nisus perished, and Minos obtained possession of the city, and demolished its walls. They were subsequently restored by Alcathous, son of Pelops, who came from Elis. In this work he was assisted by Apollo. (Paus. i. 41. § 6; Theogn. 771; Ov. Met. viii. 14.) It was further related, that Hyperion, the son of Agamemnon, was the last king of Megara, and that after his death a democra

tical form of government was established. (Paus. i. 43. § 3.)

Into the value of those traditions it would be useless to inquire. It may, however, be regarded as certain, that Megara and its territory were in early tines regarded as part of Attica; and hence Strabo accounts for the omission of their names in the Iliad, because they were comprehended along with the Athenians under the general name of Ionians. (Strab. ix. p. 392.) The most certain event in the history of Megara is its conquest by the Dorians. This event is connected in tradition with the expedition of the Peloponnesians against Athens. The Dorian invaders were defeated by the voluntary sacrifice of Codrus; but Megaris was notwithstanding permanently conquered, and a Corinthian and Messenian colony founded at Megara. The pillar at the isthmus of Corinth, which had hitherto marked the boundaries of Ionia and Peloponnesus, was now removed; and Megara was henceforth a Dorian state, and its territory included in Peloponnesus. (Strab. ix. p. 393; Scymn. Ch. 502.) Megara, however, continued for some time to be subject to Corinth, and it was not without frequent struggles and wars that it at length established its independence. (For authorities, see Müller, Dorians, i. 5. § 10.) | Megara appears not to have become the ruling city in the district till it was independent of Corinth, since in earlier times it had been only one of the five hamlets (Kauai), into which the country was divided, namely, the Heraeans, Piraeans, Megarians, Cynosurians and Tripodiscaeans. (Plut. Quaest. Graec. c. 17, p. 387.)

complains that the poor no longer paid the interest of their debts, and that they plundered the houses of the rich and even the temples.

About the same time the Megarians were engaged in frequent contests with their neighbours in Attica. The chief struggle between them was for the island of Salamis, which was at length gained by the Athenians in consequence of the well-known stratagem of Solon. (Paus. i. 40. § 5; Strab. ix. p. 394.) The Megarians took their share in the Persian wars. They fought with 20 ships at the battles of Artemisium and Salamis. (Herod. viii. 1, 45.) They repulsed a body of Persians whom Mardonius sent to ravage their territory (Pans. i. 40. § 2), and finally 3000 of their troops fought at the battle of Plataea. (Herod. ix. 28.)

After the Persian War the Megarians were involved in hostilities with the Corinthians respecting the boundaries of their territories. This led the Megarians to desert the Peloponnesian alliance, and unite themselves with the Athenians, B. C 455. In order to secure their communication with Megara, the Athenians built two Long Walls connecting the city with Nisaea; and they garrisoned at the same time the town of Pegae, on the Corinthian gulf. (Thuc. i. 103.) But ten years afterwards the Megarians revolted from Athens, and having obtained the assistance of some Peloponnesian troops, they slew the Athenian garrison, with the exception of those who escaped into Nisaea. They continued to hold Nisaea and Pegae, but they also surrendered these towns in the thirty years' truce made in the same year (445) with Sparta and her allies. (Thuc. i. 114, 115.) The Athenians thus lost all authority over Megaris; but they were so exasperated with the Megarians, that they passed a decree excluding them from their markets and ports. This decree pressed very hard upon the Megarians, whose unproductive soil was not sufficient to support the population, and who obtained most of their supplies from Attica: it was one of the reasons urged by the Peloponnesians for declaring war against Athens. (Thuc. i. 67, 139; Aristoph. Acharn. 533.)

After Megara had become an independent city, its prosperity rapidly increased, and in the seventh century before the Christian era it was one of the most flourishing commercial cities of Greece. For this it was chiefly indebted to its admirable situation, which gave its inhabitants great facilities for the prosecution of commerce both by land and sea. All the roads from Northern Greece to Peloponnesus passed through their country, while their shores being washed by the Corinthian and Saronic gulfs, enabled them to trade both with the West and East. Megara founded some of the earlier Grecian colonies, both in Sicily and Thrace. In B. c. 728 it established Megara Hyblaea in Sicily, in 712 Astacus in Bithynia, in 675 Cyzicus in the Propontis, in the following year Chalcedon at the mouth of the Bosporus, and in 657 Byzantium opposite Chalcedon. About this time, or rather later, Comedy is said to have been invented by the Megarians. According to the common account, Susarion, a native of Tripodiscus in Megaris, introduced comedy into Attica. (Dict. of Biogr. art. SUSARION.) But, with the increase of wealth, the lower orders attempted to obtain a share in the government, which had hitherto been exclusively in the hands of the Dorian conquerors; and Theagenes, the father-in-law of Cylon, became tyrant or despot of Megara, by attacking the rich landed proprietors and advocating the claims of the poor. (Aristot. Rhet. i. 2, Polit. v. 4.) He embellished the city by the construction of a beautiful aqueduct, which con-it tinued to exist down to the time of Pausanias (i. 40. § 1). Theagenes ruled about B. C. 630600; but he was subsequently driven from power, and Megara was for some time torn asunder by struggles between the aristocracy and democracy. The elegiac poet Theognis, who belonged to the aristocracy, deplores the sufferings of his party, and

In the Peloponnesian War the Megarians suffered greatly. In the first year of the war the Athenians invaded Megaris with a very large force, and laid waste the whole territory up to the city walls. At the same time the Athenian fleet blockaded the harbour of Nisaea, so that Megara was in the situation of a besieged city cut off from all its supplies. This invasion was repeated by the Athenians once in every year, and sometimes even twice; and the sufferings which the people then endured were remembered by them many centuries afterwards, and were assigned to Pausanias as the reason why one of their works of art had not been finished. (Thuc. ii. 31; Plut. Per. 30; Paus. i. 40. § 4.) In the fifth year of the Peloponnesian War (B. c. 427), the Athenians under Nicias took possession of the island of Minoa, which lay in front of Nisaea, and left a garrison there, by which means the port of Nisaea was still more effectively blockaded. (Thuc. iii. 51.) Of the position of this island, and of the causeway connecting

with the mainland, we shall speak presently. In the eighth year of the Peloponnesian War (B.c. 424), the democratical party in Megara fearing the return of the aristocratical exiles, who were at Pegae, entered into regotiations with the Athenians to surrender their city to them. The Athenians still held Minoa; and the Long Walls and Nisaea were occupied by an Athenian garrison. The Athenians

Of the Long Walls, uniting Megara with Nisaea, we have already spoken. They are noticed by Aristophanes under the name of тà Meyapıkà okéλn (Lysistr. 1172). They were destroyed by the Megarians themselves, as we have already seen, in the eighth year of the Peloponnesian War, but they were subsequently restored by Phocion. Strabo speaks of them as if they still existed in his time (ix. p. 391), but they would seem to have fallen to ruin before that of Pausanias, as he makes no mention of them. Ac

in length, but according to Strabo (1. c.) 18 stadia.

On the ascent to the citadel Alcathoë, Pausanias | northern side of the town are the only remains of the saw, on the right hand, the sepulchre of Megareus, celebrated fountain of the Sithnide nymphs. and near it the hearth of the gods called Prodomeis, to whom Alcathous sacrificed when he was going to build the walls. Here was the stone upon which Apollo laid his lyre, when he was assisting Alcathous, and which, on being struck, returned a sound like that of a harp. (Comp. Theogn. 771; Ov. Met. viii. 14.) Beyond was the council-house (BovλEUTÝρiov) of the Megarians, formerly the sepulchre of Timalcus; and on the summit of the Acropolis was a temple of Athena, containing a statue of the goddess, entirely gilded, with the ex-cording to Thucydides (iv. 66) they were 8 stadia ception of the face, hands, and feet, which were of ivory. Here, also, were temples of Athena Nice, or Victory, and Aeantis. The temple of Apollo was originally of brick, but had been rebuilt of white marble by Hadrian. Here, also, was a temple of Demeter Thesmophorus, in descending from which occurred the tomb of Callipolis, daughter of Alcathous. On the road leading to the Prytaneium the traveller passed the heroum of Ino, the heroum of Iphigeneia, and a temple of Artemis said to have been erected by Agamemnon. In the Prytaneium were tombs of Menippus, son of Megareus, and Echepolis, son of Alcathous; near which was a stone called Anaclethra, because here Demeter sat down and called her daughter. Pausanias next mentions the sepulchres of those Megarians who had fallen in battle against the Persians, and the Aesymnium, so named from its founder, which contained a monument of the heroes of Megara. There were several sepulchral monuments on the way from the Aesymnium to the heroum of Alcathous, in which the public records were preserved in the time of Pausanias. Beyond was the Dionysium or temple of Dionysus; close to which was the temple of Aphrodite, containing several statues by Praxiteles. Near the latter was a temple of Fortune, with an image of the goddess by Praxiteles. A neighbouring temple contained statues of the Muses, and a Jupiter in brass, by Lysippus.

In the Agora stood the tombs of Coroebus and of the athlete Orsippus, the former of which was ornamented by some of the most ancient specimens of sculpture which Pausanias had seen in Greece. On descending from the Agora by the street called Straight, there stood, a little to the right, the temple of Apollo Prostaterius, with a statue of the god of great merit, as well as other statues by Praxiteles. In the ancient gymnasium, near the gates called Nymphades, was a pyramidal stone, called by the natives Apollo Carinus, and a temple of the Eileithyiae. On the road to the port of Nisaea was a temple of Demeter Malophorus. The Acropolis of Nisaea still remained; on descending from the Acropolis there was the tomb of Lelex on the sea-side. Near Nisaea was a small island, called Minoa, where the fleet of the Cretans was moored during the war against Nisus. Megara still retains its ancient name, but it is a miserable place. It occupies only the western of the two ancient citadels, and as this was probably Alcathoë, the town on the summit is on the site of the temple of Athena. There are hardly any remains of antiquity at Megara. On the eastern acropolis there are a few remains of the ancient walls. None of the numerous temples mentioned by Pausanias can be identified; and only one of them is marked by the frusta of some Ionic columns. The magnificent aqueduct of Theagenes has disappeared; and soine imperfect foundations and a large fountain on the

The position of Nisaea and Minoa has given rise to much dispute, as the localities described by Thucydides do not agree with the present features of the coast. The subject has been briefly discussed by Colonel Leake (Northern Greece, vol. ii. p. 401), and more fully by Dr. Arnold (Thucyd. vol. ii. p. 393) and Lient. Spratt. (London Geographical Journal, vol. viii. p. 205.) Thucydides represents Minoa as an island close to Nisaea, and united to the latter by a bridge over a morass. On Minoa the Megarians had built a fortress (Thuc. iii. 51). Strabo (ix. p. 39) calls Minoa a promontory (ăκpa). He says that," after the Scironian rocks, we come to the promontory Minoa, forming the harbour of Nisaea." Pausanias (i. 44. § 3), however, agrees with Thucydides in calling it an island; but it may be observed that the expression of Strabo (ăкpa) is not inconsistent with its being an island, as stated by Thucydides and Pausanias. The difficulty in determining the site of Minoa and Nisaea arises from the fact, that there is at present no island off the coast which can be identified with Minoa. At the distance of nearly a mile and a half from Megara there is a small rocky peninsula, and further off two islands, the inner one of which affords shelter to a few of the small class of coasters. Hence it has been supposed that the inner island was Minoa, as it forms the port of the Megarians of the present day. But this island is distant from the promontory about 200 yards, with 7 fathoms of water between them; consequently they could never bave been connected by a bridge. It might, indeed, be argued, that the peninsula was once an island ; but this is disproved by the fact that its isthmus is of equal height with its extremity. Moreover, there are no ancient remains, either on this island or the peninsula.

Other writers, among whom are Colonel Leake and Dr. Arnold, suppose the promontory of Tikho (see map, No. 6), further to the east, at the entrance of the strait of Salamis, to have been Minoa, since it may at one time have been an island. Accordingly, the statement of Strabo respecting the length of the Long Walls, is preferred to that of Thucydides. But this promontory is nearly 3 miles in length, which is larger than is implied in the description of Thucydides (iii. 51), who speaks of it as fortified only by a single fort. Moreover, Pausanias calls Minoa a small island. Lieutenant Spratt has offered a more probable solution of the difficulty. He supposes Minoa to be a rocky hill, surmounted by a ruined fortress, and standing on the margin of the sea south of Megara, at the distance of little more than a geographic mile, thus agreeing with the 8 stadia of Thucydides. That this hill was once a peninsula, appears evident from the dry beds of two rivers, which pass close to its base; one on each side. The eastern