Description of Greece

In this way the Megarians changed their customs and dialect and became Dorians, and they say that the city received its name when Car the son of Phoroneus was king in this land. It was then they say that sanctuaries of Demeter were first made by them, and then that men used the name Megara (Chambers). This is their history according to the Megarians themselves. But the Boeotians declare that Megareus, son of Poseidon, who dwelt in Onchestus, came with an army of Boeotians to help Nisus wage the war against Minos; that falling in the battle he was buried on the spot, and the city was named Megara from him, having previously been called Nisa.

In the twelfth generation after Car the son of Phoroneus the Megarians say that Lelex arrived from Egypt and became king, and that in his reign the tribe Leleges received its name. Lelex they say begat Cleson, Cleson Pylas and Pylas Sciron, who married the daughter of Pandion and afterwards disputed with Nisus, the son of Pandion, about the throne, the dispute being settled by Aeacus, who gave the kingship to Nisus and his descendants, and to Sciron the leadership in war. They say further that Nisus was succeeded by Megareus, the son of Poseidon, who married Iphinoe, the daughter of Nisus, but they ignore altogether the Cretan war and the capture of the city in the reign of Nisus.

There is in the city a fountain, which was built for the citizens by Theagenes,[*](See Paus. 1.28.1.) whom I have mentioned previously as having given his daughter in marriage to Cylon the Athenian. This Theagenes upon becoming tyrant built the fountain, which is noteworthy for its size, beauty and the number of its pillars. Water flows into it called the water of the Sithnid nymphs. The Megarians say that the Sithnid nymphs are native, and that one of them mated with Zeus; that Megarus, a son of Zeus and of this nymph, escaped the flood in the time of Deucalion, and made his escape to the heights of Gerania. The mountain had not yet received this name, but was then named Gerania (Crane Hill) because cranes were flying and Megarus swam towards the cry of the birds.

Not far from this fountain is an ancient sanctuary, and in our day likenesses stand in it of Roman emperors, and a bronze image is there of Artemis surnamed Saviour. There is a story that a detachment of the army of Mardonius, having over run Megaris[*](479 B.C.), wished to return to Mardonius at Thebes, but that by the will of Artemis night came on them as they marched, and missing their way they turned into the hilly region. Trying to find out whether there was a hostile force near they shot some missiles. The rock near groaned when struck, and they shot again with greater eagerness,

until at last they used up all their arrows thinking that they were shooting at the enemy. When the day broke, the Megarians attacked, and being men in armour fighting against men without armour who no longer had even a supply of missiles, they killed the greater number of their opponents. For this reason they had an image made of Artemis Saviour. Here are also images of the gods named the Twelve, said to be the work of Praxiteles. But the image of Artemis herself was made by Strongylion.

After this when you have entered the precinct of Zeus called the Olympieum you see a note worthy temple. But the image of Zeus was not finished, for the work was interrupted by the war of the Peloponnesians against the Athenians, in which the Athenians every year ravaged the land of the Megarians with a fleet and an army, damaging public revenues and bringing private families to dire distress. The face of the image of Zeus is of ivory and gold, the other parts are of clay and gypsum. The artist is said to have been Theocosmus, a native, helped by Pheidias. Above the head of Zeus are the Seasons and Fates, and all may see that he is the only god obeyed by Destiny, and that he apportions the seasons as is due. Behind the temple lie half-worked pieces of wood, which Theocosmus intended to overlay with ivory and gold in order a complete the image of Zeus.

In the temple itself is dedicated a bronze ram of a galley. This ship they say that they captured off Salamis in a naval action with the Athenians. The Athenians too admit that for a time they evacuated the island before the Megarians, saying that after wards Solon[*](The great legislator, who flourished early in the sixth century B.C.) wrote elegiac poems and encouraged them, and that thereupon the Athenians challenged their enemies, won the war and recovered Salamis. But the Megarians say that exiles from themselves, whom they call Dorycleans, reached the colonists in Salamis and betrayed the island to the Athenians.

After the precinct of Zeus, when you have ascended the citadel, which even at the present day is called Caria from Car, son of Phoroneus, you see a temple of Dionysus Nyctelius (Nocturnal), a sanctuary built to Aphrodite Epistrophia (She who turns men to love), an oracle called that of Night and a temple of Zeus Conius (Dusty) without a roof. The image of Asclepius and also that of Health were made by Bryaxis. Here too is what is called the Chamber of Demeter, built, they say, by Car when he was king.

On coming down from the citadel, where the ground turns northwards, is the tomb of Alcmena, near the Olympieum. They say that as she was walking from Argos to Thebes she died on the way at Megara, and that the Heracleidae fell to disputing, some wishing to carry the corpse of Alcmena back to Argos, others wishing to take it to Thebes, as in Thebes were buried Amphitryon and the children of Heracles by Megara. But the god in Delphi gave them an oracle that it was better for them to bury Alcmena in Megara.

From this place the local guide took us to a place which he said was named Rhus (Stream), for that water once flowed here from the mountains above the city. But Theagenes, who was tyrant at that time, turned the water into another direction and made here an altar to Achelous. Hard by is the tomb of Hyllus, son of Heracles, who fought a duel with an Arcadian, Echemus the son of Aeropus. Who the Echemus was who killed Hyllus I will tell in another part of my narrative, but Hyllus also is buried at Megara. These events might correctly be called an expedition of the Heracleidae into the Peloponnesus in the reign of Orestes.

Not far from the tomb of Hyllus is a temple of Isis, and beside it one of Apollo and of Artemis. They say that Alcathous made it after killing the lion called Cithaeronian. By this lion they say many were slain, including Euippus, the son of Megareus their king, whose elder son Timalcus had before this been killed by Theseus while on a campaign with the Dioscuri against Aphidna. Megareus they say promised that he who killed the Cithaeronian lion should marry his daughter and succeed him in the kingdom. Alcathous therefore, son of Pelops, attacked the beast and overcame it, and when he came to the throne he built this sanctuary, surnaming Artemis Agrotera (Huntress) and Apollo Agraeus (Hunter).

Such is the account of the Megarians; but although I wish my account to agree with theirs, yet I cannot accept everything they say. I am ready to believe that a lion was killed by Alcathous on Cithaeron, but what historian has re corded that Timalcus the son of Megareus came with the Dioscuri to Aphidna? And supposing he had gone there, how could one hold that he had been killed by Theseus, when Alcman wrote a poem on the Dioscuri[*](640-600 B.C.), in which he says that they captured Athens and carried into captivity the mother of Theseus, but Theseus himself was absent?

Pindar in his poems agrees with this account, saying that Theseus, wishing to be related to the Dioscuri, carried off Helen and kept her until he departed to carry out with Peirithous the marriage that they tell of. Whoever has studied genealogy finds the Megarians guilty of great silliness, since Theseus was a descendant of Pelops. The fact is that the Megarians know the true story but conceal it, not wishing it to be thought that their city was captured in the reign of Nisus, but that both Megareus, the son-in-law of Nisus, and Alcathous, the son-in-law of Megareus, succeeded their respective fathers-in-law as king.

It is evident that Alcathous arrived from Elis just at the time when Nisus had died and the Megarians had lost everything. Witness to the truth of my statements the fact that he built the wall afresh from the beginning, the old one round the city having been destroyed by the Cretans.Let so much suffice for Alcathous and for the lion, whether it was on Cithaeron or elsewhere that the killing took place that caused him to make a temple to Artemis Agrotera and Apollo Agraeus. On going down from this sanctuary you see the shrine of the hero Pandion. My narrative has already told how Pandion was buried on what is called the Rock of Athena Aethyia (Gannet). He receives honors from the Megarians in the city as well.

Near the shrine of the hero Pandion is the tomb of Hippolyte. I will record the account the Megarians give of her. When the Amazons, having marched against the Athenians because of Antiope, were over come by Theseus, most of them met their death in the fight, but Hippolyte, the sister of Antiope and on this occasion the leader of the women, escaped with a few others to Megara. Having suffered such a military disaster, being in despair at her present situation and even more hopeless of reaching her home in Themiscyra, she died of a broken heart, and the Megarians gave her burial. The shape of her tomb is like an Amazonian shield.

Not far from this is the grave of Tereus, who married Procne the daughter of Pandion. The Megarians say that Tereus was king of the region around what is called Pagae (Springs) of Megaris, but my opinion, which is confirmed by extant evidence, is that he ruled over Daulis beyond Chaeronea, for in ancient times the greater part of what is now called Greece was inhabited by foreigners. When Tereus did what he did to Philomela and Itys suffered at the hands of the women, Tereus found himself unable to seize them.