Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume I.Pausanias, active approximately 150-175
History
Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume I.
Pausanias, active approximately 150-175
Greece -- Antiquities; Greece -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800
Next to Eleusis is the district called Megaris: it too belonged
originally to the Athenians, having been bequeathed to Pandion by (its)
king Pylas. Proofs of what I assert are the tomb of Pandion in that
district, and the fact that Nisus, though he conceded the kingdom of
Attica to Ægeus the head of the family, yet himself was selected to
be king of Megara and the whole district up to Corinth: and even now
the Megarians have a dockyard called Nisæa after him. And afterwards,
when Codrus was king, the Peloponnesians marched against Athens: and
not having any brilliant success there they went home again, but took
Megara from the Athenians, and gave it to the Corinthians and others
of their allies that wished to dwell in it. Thus the Megarians changed
their customs and dialect and became Dorians. And they say the city
got its name in the days of Car, the son of Phoroneus, who was king in
this district: in his day they say first temples were built to Demeter
among them, and the inhabitants called them Halls.[11] This is at
any rate the tradition of the Megarians. But the Bœotians say that
Megareus the son of Poseidon lived at Onchestus, and went with an army
of Bœotians to aid Nisus in his war against Minos, and that he fell in
the battle, and got buried there, and the city which had been formerly
called Nisa, got its name Megara from him. And years afterwards, in the
12th generation from Car, the son of Phoroneus, the Megarians say Lelex
came from Egypt and became king, and during his reign the Megarians
were called Leleges. And he had a son Cleson, and a grandson Pylas,
and a great-grandson Sciron, who married the daughter of Pandion, and
afterwards, (Sciron having a controversy with Nisus the son of Pandion
about the sovereignty), Æacus was arbitrator, and gave his decision
that the kingdom was to belong to Nisus and his descendants, but the
command of the army was to devolve upon Sciron. And Megareus the son of
Poseidon, having married Iphinoe the daughter of Nisus, succeeded Nisus
they say in the kingdom. But of the Cretan war, and the capture of the
city in the days of King Nisus, they pretend to know nothing.
CHAPTER XL.
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