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The Topography of Megara

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Extract

According to early investigators of the topography of the Megarid, the sites of Minoa and Nisaea were identified, the former with the small hill surmounted by a mediaeval castle standing in the middle of the coast-line in front of Megara, and the latter as the hill upon which is the church of St. George, above the hamlet of Pachi (Fig. 4). Spratt was the first to suggest this identification, which he based both on the existence of remains of ancient buildings around the small hill and on the assumption that it was originally severed from the land (Fig. 1).

His view was subsequently confirmed by Lolling.

It has, however, recently been suggested that the site identified as Nisaea is really the site of Minoa, while that given to Minoa is the real Nisaea. This reversal of the accepted identification is based on the fact that when Demosthenes in 424 made his attempt to capture the Long Walls of Megara, reinforcements were sent from Athens by land via Eleusis. These reinforcements, it is urged, would have taken up their position immediately outside the eastern Long Wall of Megara, as it would have been both difficult and dangerous to make the long circuit round the north of Megara and camp outside the western wall.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1913

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References

page 70 note 1 Journal of the Geographical Society, vol. viii, part ii, p. 205.

page 70 note 2 Ath. Mitt. v, p. 1.

page 70 note 3 Ath. Mitt. xxix, p. 79.

page 72 note 1 Thuc. iii, 51.

page 72 note 2 Pausanias (viii, 6, 1) also calls it a φρούριον.

page 72 note 3 Thuc. iv, 67.

page 73 note 1 iv, 118.

page 73 note 2 Vol. i, p. 201.

page 73 note 3 This wall, which is plainly of the utmost importance to any topographical study of the site, appears to have escaped the notice of Spratt and of Lolling, and Bölte and Weicker do not attach any importance to it. See Fig. 3 and 8 on map.

page 74 note 1 Vol. i, p. 414.

page 74 note 2 If the site of the Long Wall has been rightly identified (see below, p. 78), the boat could not possibly have been conveyed outside the walls there, as the ground is too steep and rocky and there could not have been any ditch.

page 75 note 1 Op. cit. i, p. 289.

page 75 note 2 Op. cit. p. 84. ‘Wenn der peloponnesiache Kommandant sich bereden lässt, in der dem Feinde zugekehrten Mauer ein Tor zu öffnen, so muss mann schliessen dass es in der andern Mauer kein Tor gab.’

page 75 note 3 See Kaupert's large map: ‘Die Halbinsel Peiraeus.’

page 75 note 4 See Ath. Mitt. xxix, p. 87.

page 76 note 1 Section 4 (Salamis).

page 76 note 2 Ath. Mitt. xxix, p. 14.

page 79 note 1 Ath. Mitt. xxix, p. 95.

page 80 note 1 Steamers of fairly large draught come in quite close to the modem mole at the foot of the small hill.

page 80 note 2 i, 44. 3.

page 80 note 3 ix, 1. 4.