RIGSBY, KENT J., Megara and Tripodiscus , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 28:1 
(1987:Spring) p.93 

Megara and Tripodiscus 

Kent J. Rigsby 

I N THE TIME of emperor Hadrian, according to Philo stratus, the 
Megarians had some grievance against Athens serious enough to 
cause them to prohibit Athenian citizens from attending their 

festival the Lesser Pythaeia; but the sophist Marcus of Byzantium, an 
acquaintance of the emperor, interceded and somehow mollified the 
Megarians, so that Athenians were once again welcome. 1 Now it is well 
known from the authors, inscriptions, and coins that Apollo I1v6anJS' 
was the chief god of Megara, and students of Apolline and of Megarian 
cult have duly registered this incident among their testimonia.2 They 
have not, however, remarked on an implication of this passage of 
Philostratus. If there were Lesser Pythaeia, then there were also 
Greater, I1v6ana TO. p.f.yaAa. Typically in Greek civic religion, the 
greater games would be held every fourth year and with greater eclat 
and more elaborate competitions, so designated to distinguish them 
from the intervening annual celebrations.3 From Megara itself, more­
over, we have a further testimony for a distinction ofPythian games. 

In the second century B.C. a Megarian boxer was honored with a 
statue erected in his native city; the base survives, inscribed with the 
names of various festivals in which he had been victorious. 4 His vic-

1 Philostr. VS 1.24.5: otl/e ia€XovTO <Tf/las is Ttz llv/ha Ttz IJ-l/eptz ;f,eovTas. On Marcus see 
Schissel, RE 14.2 (1930) 1853-56 s.v. "Markos (2)." 

2 Most explicit is Sylf.3 653.22 (TOl! ' A7r<iAAwvos TOU TijS 7r<iAt"wS aPXl1Y€TOV: II B.C.), 
cf Theog. 773f (and indeed his invocation, Iff) and Paus. 1.42.1 (Apollo built the city 
walls). See L. R. Farnell, Cults of the Greek States IV (Oxford 1907) 439; E. L. High­
barger, History and Civilization oj Ancient Megara (Baltimore 1927) 32f, and in 
TAPA 68 (1937) 99-111; K. HANELL, Megarische Studien (Lund 1934 [hereafter 
'Hanell']) 84-91. I must note that the articles "Pythaios" and "Pythios (1-3)" in RE 
24 (1963) are antiquated in documentation and scope; and that RE, followed by 
Kleine Pauly, has omitted an article on the (many) Pythian games. 

3 So e.g. the Athenian Panathenaia (L. Deubner, Attische Feste [Berlin 1932] 23) 
and the Trojan (Sokolowski, LSAM 1O.29ff), the Mysteries at Eleusis (PI. Grg. 497c; 
IG J2 313.144, etc.; G. Mylonas, Eleusis and the Eleusinian Mysteries [Princeton 
1961] 239ft), the Haleia at Rhodes (SylJ.3 1067.14). Cf L. Moretti, J. agon. gr. p.118. 

4IG VII 48, cited without comment by Farnell (supra n.2) 394, Hanell 94. Ditten­
berger in IG reports the stone as lost. A squeeze is at the Institute for Advanced Stud-

93 



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94 MEGARA AND TRIPODISCUS 

tories, each inscribed within a crown, were mostly regional, in cities of 
Peloponnesus, Attica, and Boeotia-as well as in his native Megara. In 
one crown we read TIv6ana 7'flJ"Y/L7JV, in another TIv6ana [TCl (V li]UTE[L 
7'f]a)'Kpanov. Certainly Megara had only two Pythaeia, not four (Philo­
stratus' Lesser and by implication Greater plus the boxer's Pythaeia 
and City Pythaeia). In distinguishing Lesser from Greater, Philostra­
tus used terms for Greek games that would be intelligible to all readers; 
the inscription shows us the official usage by which the distinction was 
drawn at Megara. Of the two celebrations, one was held in the city and 
the other, simply the 'Pythaeia', in the country: but which was the 
lesser and which the greater? Apollo's temple in the city was on the 
western acropolis (Paus. 1.42.5), where there can have been little open 
space; we might expect the great concourse to have been held at some 
more open site in the country that could accommodate the crowds and 
the competitions. Again, the unqualified TIv6ana might more naturally 
indicate the great festival, the one requiring geographical specification 
the lesser version.5 But these are inconclusive arguments; in Athens 
the 6.LovvuLa (= 6.LovvuLa TCl (V liuTn = 6.LovvuLa TCl /LE)'aAa) stood in 
contrast to the several minor Dionysia in the demes (KaTCl KW/LaS, PI. 
Resp. 475D).6 More decisive evidence, I believe, comes from a distant 
quarter. 

Greater fame attached to the Apollo of the Chalcedonians, Megar­
ian colonists. Oracular by the beginning of the Hellenistic age, this god 
came to enjoy a far-flung reputation and clientele.7 In the Hellenistic 
period Chalcedon received signal honors in the name of its patron 
Apollo, as we know from two inscriptions. In a text from Delphi of the 
last third of the third century B.C., the Amphictyony declares the tem­
ple inviolable: [T]O tEPOV TOV ' A7'fOAAWVOS TO[V] TIv6alov TO (V TaL KaA­
xalJovLaL aUVAOV Kat cj>VKn/LOV EL/LEV.8 And on a stone from Chalcedon 
itself, of the end of the third century or the beginning of the second, 
decrees ofPhocaea and Tenedos declare the city inviolable in honor of 

ies in Princeton: from this I can confirm the readings quoted here but not improve on 
them; also the date in the second century B.C., probably its second half. 

S One thinks of the Eleusinion versus the lesser 'EAt"VO'{V&OV TO EV 1l0'Tt"&; testimonies 
in R. E. Wycherly, Athenian Agora III (Princeton 1957) nos. 206, 208, 225, 227, 228. 
Compare /.Cret. III iii 3.B.llf (Lyttus), (V T(;" tt"PW& T[W 'A1rojUwvos Kat (PO 1rOAt"& (V 

'A87/Va{a&: the chief temple, Apollo L!l..uaTat/>opos in the countryside (versus Athena 
Polias: I. Cret. III iii 9), needed no specification. 

6 A. Pickard-Cambridge, Dramatic Festivals of Athens (Oxford 1968) 40, 55. 
7 SEG 24.1091; Arrian FGrHist 156F20; Anth.Pal. 9.551; Luc. Alex. 10; Soc. HE 

4.8. Cf Farnell (supra n.2) 398, 402f; Hanell 165. The Pythian games of Chalcedon 
were panhellenic by Imperial times: IGR I 802, IV 161, MAMA VIII 521. 

8 FD I1I.4 372 (Sylf.3 550). 



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KENT 1. RIGSBY 95 

Apollo: a7ToolL{aL T~JL 7T6ALV T~V KaAX17o[oVLwv Lfpav Kal. &]O"VAOV, the city 
having been declared "his own" by' A7TOAAWV XP7Jo"T~PLO~.9 

Scholars have labored without success to discover why the god bears 
different epithets in these two inscriptions. Laurent assumed that the 
two declarations were contemporary, deriving from a single occasion, 
as is typical of declarations of asylia, and concluded that the grantors 
themselves picked what epithet to call the god; this however would be 
unparalleled and highly unlikely-one repeated the terms of the re­
quest in such decrees. Klaffenbach preferred to assign the two inscrip­
tions to separate occasions, deducing that the god became oracular and 
changed his epithet between the dates of the two; this was excluded 
when an inscription older than both was discovered invoking an oracle 
of Apollo Chresterius of Chalcedon (SEG 24.1091). No one, it seems, 
has noticed the geographical import of the two inscriptions. The Am­
phictyony speaks expressly of the temple "in Chalcedonian territory" 
(£V TaL KaAxaoovLaL)10 rather than what would have been the usual and 
geographically ambiguous £V XaAKaabvL or 7Tapa XaAKaoovLoL~:11 it was 
in the country and not in the city. The Phocaeans and Tenedians, by 
contrast, declare the inviolability of the city, not the usual "city and 
country." There is no overlap in geography; and in general, the two 
texts share very little in their terminology and organization. The con­
clusion must be not only that they derive from different occasions but 
also that they address themselves to different temples of the Chalce­
donians: first Apollo nv6a'io~ 12 in the country, later Apollo XP17o"T~PLO~ 
in the cityP 

We have then a pertinent fact about the worship of Apollo at Chal­
cedon: as at Megara, it was split in two. The temple that retained the 
original Megarian epithet was in the countryside. The oracular temple, 
whose epithet reflected the power its god had achieved at some time 
(Apollo of Megara was not oracular), was in the city proper, where the 

9 V. Laurent, EchO 27 (1928) 24-44; G. Klaffenbach, AbhBerlin 1958.2, 10-14 
[SEG 17.540]; I.Kalchedon 5. 

10 Such adjectives are normal usage for a civic territory; for an instance of the 
extensive territory of Chalcedon, see Hdt. 4.85.1 (TijS KaAX7JOOvl7Js: Darius on the 
Bosporus). 

II Thus we find, applied to temples in the countryside, tV KWL (etc.) at Cos (SEG 
12.371f1), Boeotian Coroneia (Staatsvertr. III 463.a.5), Memphis (Paus. 1.18.4); 1Tapa 
Up-LV for example of the Milesians' temple of Apollo at Didyma (I.Didyma 493.4). 

12 I repeat the spelling of the one extant record, the Amphictyonic decree, without 
knowing whether this divergence from the original Megarian TIv8an!s reflects the 
passage of time or an error at Delphi. 

13 Chalcedon will not be the only city to obtain asylia on two occasions for different 
cults: so Pergamum for Athena Nicephorus and Asc1epius, Stratonicea for Hecate and 
Zeus. 



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96 MEGARA AND TRIPODISCUS 

inscribed decrees ofPhocaea and Tenedos were in fact found. Its fame, 
resulting from the oracle's popularity, has eclipsed that of the country 
temple, which has left no trace in our literary evidence. But it seems 
clear from the palaeography of the two inscriptions that the Chalce­
donians first sought inviolability in honor of Apollo IIv8a'i:oS' in the 
countryside and only later made the same gesture for the city temple of 
Apollo XP7J<TT.qPLOS'. The country temple, then, was evidently regarded 
by the Chalcedonians as their chief cult deserving of first honor. I 
suggest that this relationship replicated that at Megara. There too the 
chief temple will have been in the country, the seat of the 'Pythaeia', 
while the urban temple was an offshoot and surrogate where the 'City 
Pythaeia' were held, Philostratus' lesser games. 

The specific geography of these matters is only partly in doubt. The 
literary sources make clear that the temple of Apollo Chresterius was 
in the city proper of Chalcedon. And the stone bearing the decrees of 
Phocaea and Tenedos was found (though not in situ) at Moda, the 
seaward side of the peninsula of Kadlkoy, thought to be the oldest part 
ofChalcedon city.14 If I am right, there was a senior temple of Apollo 
IIv8a'i:oS' in the country, not known to us from the literary sources. But 
the interior of Chalcedon's vast territory is little spoken of and little 
excavated. One can say only that the country temple was not on the 
Bosporan coast, on which we are richly informed by the peripius lit­
erature. IS If the example of Megara held (see infra), it probably stood 
in the hills within a few hours' walk of the city. 

As to the mother-city, Pausanias tells us plainly that the temple of 
Apollo was on the western acropolis of Megara city. He reports only 
one fact about it: it had recently been rebuilt by Hadrian, who gave the 
god a marble temple to replace the ancient brick structure (1.42.5). 
Here is further reason to think that Philo stratus' 'Lesser Pythaeia' 
were the city games. Philostratus does not tell us how the Megarians 
were placated in Hadrian's time; I suggest that they were satisfied by 
the emperor's rebuilding this temple-the city temple-from which 
his fellow Athenians were being excluded. Perhaps the Megarians' 
grievance was some damage or despoliation in the old temple commit­
ted by an Athenian. 

Where then was the country seat of the god, his primary temple? 
Apart from the harbor Nisaea, there was only one famous place in 
Megara's mainland territory. This was Tripodiscus in the western 
hills, some three hours' walk from Megara city.16 Here on the slope of 

14 R. Janin, EchO 21 (1922) 354; cf Laurent (supra n.9) 44. 
IS Cf Oberhummer, RE 3.2 (1899) 742-57 s.v. "Bosporos (1)." 
16 Cf E. Meyer, RE 7A.l (1939) 201f S.v. "Tripodiskos." One account of the origin 

of comedy held that its inventor came from here: I.ovuap{wv Afyn TaaE vIos Cf>&ALVOV 



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KENT J. RIGSBY 97 

Mt Gerania, the high road out of Peloponnesus divides, one way 
leading north to Phocis and Delphi, the other northeast past Megara 
city into Attica. Any road capable of bearing carts must pass this way. 
Here was the obvious staging area for invaders from the south, and so 
we find Tripodiscus used (Thuc. 4.70). The Megarians held a market at 
Tripodiscus (Strab. 394), a testimony to its convenience for trans­
portation. But the fame ofthe place rested on its cult of Apollo. 

We might guess that the name of Tripodiscus derives from the 
meeting of the three roads. But its story is told by Pausanias and some 
other late sources. 17 The daughter of the queen of Argos bore a son to 
Apollo; the infant was exposed and killed, and the monster Poine was 
sent against the Argives in retribution. The hero Coroebus came and 
killed Poine, but a plague occurred in retribution for his act. He went 
to Delphi to receive punishment and lift the plague, and was told by 
Apollo to take a tripod from the temple and carry it until it should slip 
from his hands: there he should settle, not returning to Argos, and 
build a temple to Apollo. The slip occurred at Tripodiscus. Coroebus 
was buried, however, in the agora of Megara: evidently the Megarians 
came to regard him as a founder of sorts. Over his tomb Pausanias saw 
what he believed to be the oldest statue in Greece, Coroebus killing 
Poene. Pausanias clearly considered him a Megarian-he killed Poine 
"as a favor to the Argives." The Argive version, known from Conon, 
differed considerably, making Tripodiscus an Argive colony in Mega­
rian territory. In Pausanias we have the Megarians' account, which 
made Co roe bus ofTripodiscus a Megarian hero. 

Leake saw at Tripodiscus "the evident vestiges of an ancient town, 
exactly on the shortest route from Delphi to the Isthmus"; there has 
been surface surveying of the terraces here, though no excavation, 
with brief report in the literature. 18 The site, once located precisely, de­
serves study. Pausanias does not state the epithet of Apollo at Tripo­
discus; but he was never at this village,19 rather learning its story in 
Megara. It seems to me obvious, however, that this must be the coun­
try temple of Apollo Pythaeus, patron of Megara. This temple, with its 

MEyapo8Ev TPl,"ol>LCWOS (M. L. West, Iambi et eiegi II [Oxford 1972] 145; cf A. Korte, 
RE 4 A.l [1931] 973 s. v. "Susarion "). 

17 Paus. 1.43.7f, to be contrasted with Conon FGrHist 26F19. For references see J. 
G. Frazer, Pausanias's Description of Greece II (London 1898) 536f; Eitrern, RE 11.2 
(1922) 418-20 s.v. "Koroibos (I}"; and especially Wilarnowitz, Kleine Schriften V.2 
108-13. 

18 W. Leake, Travels in Northern Greece IV (London 1835) 41Of; M. Sakellariou and 
N. Parakas, Megaris, Aigosthena, Ereneia (Ancient Greek Cities 14 [Athens 1972]) 
App. II 2f, 22f. 

19 See A. Muller, BCH 106 (1982) 105-07. 



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98 MEGARA AND TRIPODISCUS 

claim of Delphian origin, six miles into the hills from Megara city, will 
be the site to which the people resorted for the great games, the TIv-
8aELa, as distinct from the TIv8aE&a TO. EV liCTTE&. 

The implication is that Tripodiscus held a special place in the orga­
nization of Megara. It was the original site of the city's tutelary di­
vinity, just as Coroebus himself was appropriated from Tripodiscus to 
Megara city. Ritual may well have emphasized this ancient primacy, 
for example a procession linking Megara city and Tripodiscus on the 
occasion of the Pythaeia-one thinks again of Eleusis and Athens. But 
the point is chronological: inasmuch as the divided cult is replicated at 
Chalcedon, the special standing of Tripodiscus in the constitution of 
Megara must be older than the foundation of that colony in the sev­
enth century B.C. 

Here then is a terminus ante quem, ca 700 B.C., for the primacy of 
Tripodiscus in the constitution of Megara. A terminus post quem of 
sorts may be discerned in the Homeric poems: Homer, who names so 
many cities, does not know Megara. His silence is doubtless a weak 
argument, but it is consistent with the ancient claims that Megara was 
colonized late, whether from Athens or from the already-Dorian 
south. However one dates the various matter in the poems, most 
scholars have reckoned Megara a relative newcomer.20 

The special role of Tripodiscus in the organization of Megara seems 
to me certain, its explanation less so. In theory there are two ways in 
which Tripodiscus can have become a subordinate but privileged part 
of the Megarian state. Either an existing city Megara conquered inde­
pendent Tripodiscus in the western hills and annexed it, placating its 
ruling families and its god by granting extraordinary honor to Apollo 
and to Coroebus; or several independent cities, of which Tripodiscus 
was most influential, came together in a synoikismos to form a new city 
called Megara, whose constitution reflected the early primacy of Tri­
podiscus. Of these two explanations, the first seems the less likely. The 
analogy of Eleusis and other annexed cities, in which the god is given a 
secondary site in the conquering city and his priestly family given 
special privileges, is uncompelling for Megara, where the god of Tri­
podiscus became the chief divinity of the city: this seems to have no 

20 References in W. R. Halleday, The Greek Questions of Plutarch (Oxford 1928) 
96-98. Both V. Burr, NEON KAT AAOrOI (=Klio Beih. 49 [1944]) Ill, and R. Hope 
Simpson and J. F. Lazenby, The Catalogue of the Ships (Oxford 1970) 155, list 
Megara among important cities not mentioned by the Catalogue; cf D. Page, History 
and the Homeric Iliad (Berkeley 1959) 120. Against the idea that the Nisa of 11.2.508 
(among Boeotians) is Megara (e.g. Hanell 23, 55; Burr 27f) see G. Jachmann, Die 
homerische Schiffskatalog und die Ilias (Cologne/Opladen 1958) 28-30; Page 157. 



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KENT 1. RIGSBY 99 

parallel in such cases of annexation. The toponym 'Megara' itself 
suggests a neologism, 'the great hall', designating a new site for a 
numerous citizenry. These things point to the second explanation: at 
some time in the Dark Ages, the small cities of the region underwent a 
synoikismos and found a new site for their combined city, calling it 
'Megara'. The most influential of those towns will have been Tripo­
discus, whose god and whose founder received first honors in the new 
polity. 

Plutarch reports the tradition that "in ancient times" the Megarid 
was made up of villages, the citizens being divided among five: 

" , I I I ~ ~ ~ , ~ ~ '1>' 
KaTa KWiJ-as, us 1TEVn: iJ-EpTf VEVEiJ-TfiJ-EVWV TWV 1TOI\LTWV. EKal\OVVTO u 

'HpaELS Ka't IlLpaELS Ka't MEyapELs Ka't KVVOUOVPELS Ka't TPL1TooLuKLOL. 21 

That villages played an unusually important role in the constitution of 
Megara is clear from its oldest extant decree: late in the fourth century 
honors are promised to anyone who is of service "to the city or the 
villages" (tnrEp TaS 7TbALOS ~ tnrEp Tay KWJJ.aV). 22 But is Plutarch's list 
credible? Apart from Tripodiscus, only Cynosura is attested indepen­
dently, as a (KaTO(TTVS, a territorial subdivision, of Hellenistic 
Megara.23 It seems unlikely that one of the five villages of Megara was 
named 'Megara'.24 Historians have made much of Plutarch's Heraeans 
and Piraeans, taking them to be the famous temple of Hera and its 
neighbor Peiraeus-that is, the Perachora peninsula of the Corin­
thia-and deducing that this region originally belonged to Megara and 
was only subsequently lost to Corinth. The geographical imbalance of 
these distant but adjacent places making up two of the five villages of 
early Megara provokes suspicion.25 Plutarch's omissions are also dis-

21 Mor. 295B, probably from Aristotle: Highbarger, Civilization (supra n.2) 92; cf T. 
J. Figueira, Theognis of Megara (Baltimore/London 1985) 114. 

22IG VII 1.17 [Sylf.3 331]. 
23 IG IV2 42.18-20 (in 22110 B.C.). The term (KaTO(TTV!; is found also at Megara's 

colony Byzantium, see Hanell 142. 
24 Admittedly, however, at Dyme there was a tribe ~vf.tata (SGDI 1614.32), at 

Ephesus a tribe 'E<pt"(Tt"vs (listed l.Ephesos VIII.2 p.74). 
25 Since the early nineteenth century scholars have emended Plutarch to IInpat"ts 

and taken him to mean these, so that at some early date Megara is reckoned to have 
owned this peninsula far to the west, later the religious heartland of the Corinthia: H. 
Reingamun, Das alte Megaris (Berlin 1825) 96; E. Curtius, RhM N.S. 4 (1846) 202; C. 
Bursian, Geographie von Griechenland I (Leipzig 1862) 372; E. Meyer, RE 15.1 
(1931) l68f s. v. "Megara"; R. P. Legon, Megara: the Political History of a Greek City­
State (Ithaca/New York 1981) 47f. The excavators of Perachora, believing in its 
earlier Megarian history, looked for some evidence of a break in material culture, but 
in vain: Humphrey Payne, Perachora I (Oxford 1940) 20. The common answer has 
been that, as Megara was under Corinthian influence, Megarian and Corinthian 
remains will be indistinguishable: e.g., J. N. Coldstream, Geometric Greece (London 
1977) 86; Figueira (supra n.2l) 267. 



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100 MEGARA AND TRIPODISCUS 

concerting-the harbor town Nisaea, perhaps too (though his concern 
is .q M£yapl~) the most famous possession of early Megara, the island 
Salamis, where the Aeacids formerly had their palace. 

There are reasons, therefore, for doubting Plutarch's list. We have 
however another, far older. A famous textual dispute concerned the 
Athenian section of the Catalogue of Ships (II. 2.S46fl). At 2.SS6f the 
text that became normative has the forces of Ajax of Salamis follow 
upon the Athenians, in these terms: 

A" ~" ~" ~ " ~ I~ ~ 
La~ u £K L.al\aIJ.LVO~ ay£v uVOKaLu£Ka v7Ja~, 
~ ~'" ,,, A8 I " if.. I " UT7JUE u aywv Lva 7JvaLWV LUTaVTO 't'al\ayyE~. 

Many readers felt that this implied the subordination of Salamis to 
Athens (modem scholars have not always agreed) and attributed the 
couplet to sixth-century Athenian tampering;26 and certainly Athens 
invoked the text for their claim. The Megarians' version of the Iliad 
was different:27 

A" ~" ~" ~ " I " II" I La~ u £K L.al\aIJ.LVO~ ay£v v£a~ £K T£ OI\LXV7J~ 

" , A' I N'T I ~ EK T Ly£LpOVUU7J~ LuaL7J~ TE PL7TOuWV TE. 

Thus in the train of Salamis come Polichne, Aegirusa, Nisaea, and 
Tripodiscus. One may suspect that the author of this couplet lived 
before the foundation of Megara: a Megarian forger motivated by his 
city's claim upon Salamis in the face of an Athenian threat should not 
have spoiled his case by failing to name Megara.28 

The Megarian couplet in effect gives us a roster of the kingdom of 
Telamonian Ajax. Though the question is difficult, it seems to me 
more credible than Plutarch's list as a portrait of the land that had 
been the kingdom of Ajax and would become the city-state Megara. 29 

26 Hope Simpson and Lazenby (supra n.20: 590 doubt that the lines imply 
subordination. For the opposite view see Leaf (Iliad P [London 1900] 92): "The fact 
that the line cannot be original is patent from the fact that Aias in the rest of the Iliad 
is not encamped next the Athenians .... Indeed, the way in which the great hero is 
dismissed in a couple of lines, without even his father's name, sounds like a mocking 
cry of triumph from Athens over the conquest of the island of the Aiakidai." So too 
Jacoby ad FGrHist 328FI07 (II 333fn.25). 

27 Strab. 9.1.10 (394), cf Arist. Rh. 1375b, Pluto Sol. 10; further references in T. W. 
Allen, Homeri Ilias II (Oxford 1931) 58; cf Hanell 21f; Jacoby ad FGrHist 328FF14-
16 and 207 (II 210 n.103, 470 n.13); M. van der Valk, Researches on the Text and 
Scholia of the Iliad II (Leiden 1964) 519; L. Piccirilli, M€yap&Kcl (Pisa 1975) 133f. 

28 Figueira (supra n.21) 265-69 is most recent to suggest that Nisaea might be "an 
archaism for Megara"; but Nisaea was a real place, the harbor town, and to be 
expected in a roster of the Megarid. Bursian (supra n.25) thought that Polichne might 
be Megara. Figueira holds the couplet to be accurate for the late seventh and sixth 
centuries, Plutarch before. 

29 The lines are dismissed as fraud by (e.g.) M. P. Nilsson, Cults, Myths, Oracles, 
and Politics (Lund 1951) 29. Cf A. Dihle, Homer-Probleme (Opladen 1970) 30, 97-
102; G. S. Kirk, The Iliad: A Commentary I (Cambridge 1985) 207-09. 



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KENT J.RIGSBY 101 

It names the three places we know to have been important-Salamis, 
Nisaea, and Tripodiscus; as to Aegirusa, an Aegirus is on record as a 
village of historical Megara.30 Polichne alone is unique, though this is a 
common enough name for a fortified hill town, and the Megarid has 
several of these to show. 31 Plutarch's list, by contrast, is confirmed in 
only two of its elements; and its political geography, with two places 
adjacent to each other and far from the traditional Megarid, seems to 
me most dubious. Perhaps Plutarch's list represents an attempt by 
classical Megara to demonstrate an early possession ofPerachora. I am 
inclined to recommend the authority of the epic couplet over that of 
Plutarch. But perhaps it is enough here to observe that the two lists do 
share one place, Tripodiscus. 

If I am right in deducing the primacy of Tripodiscus at the begin­
nings of the city-state Megara, we may glimpse a political event of the 
Dark Ages. An epic couplet gives us a portrait of a territorial state, the 
kingdom of Ajax of Salamis; the territorial state that succeeded it, 
Megara, had its center on the acropolis north of Nisaea harbor but 
gave special honor to Tripodiscus in the western hills. The transforma­
tion of the one into the other perhaps occurred after the matter of epic 
was largely set. What is the nature of the transformation? 

It will be clear that a fundamental shift in orientation has taken 
place. The seat of the Aeacid kings was Salamis; surely their place was 
the sea and they held the mainland by conquest as a peraia. Strabo 
(393) says that in his day the town on Salamis was on the north coast, 
facing Athens, but that the old town (he does not say how old) was on 
the south, looking toward Aegina. 32 By contrast, historical Megara, 
while watching over its harbor on the Saronic Gulf, felt its roots to be 
in the west-at Tripodiscus on Mt Gerania with its easy access to Pelo­
ponnesus and its mythic link to Delphi; Salamis was an outpost, held, 
we know, with difficulty. In the Megarid, the passage from Mycenaean 
kingdom to Iron Age city-state was embodied in what must have been 
a conscious and pointed transformation of political geography. It ap­
pears that towns that had been under the sway of the island kings 
banded together, led by the Tripodiscians, to form a new city Megara, 
'the great hall'. Salamis was among the towns, the king reduced to a 
magistrate,33 but the focus of the new polity was on the land and its 

30 Theopompus FGrHist 115F241 (equated with the epic place by Stephan us of By­
zantium or his source); Pluto Mor. 304E. Cf N. G. L. Hammond, Studies in Greek 
History (Oxford 1973) 442f. 

31 E. Kirsten, RE 21.2 (1952) 1366-76 s. v. "Polichna." For fortresses of the Me­
garid see Hammond (supra n.30) 417-46; J. Ober, AJA 87 (1983) 387-93. 

32 Whence Telamon had migrated to Salamis: Apollod. 3.12.7. 
33 For the basileus at historical Megara see Hanell 145-48; for the AlavTfLa on Sala­

mis in Hellenistic times see Deubner (supra n.3) 228. The Megarians held Ajax's 



RIGSBY, KENT J., Megara and Tripodiscus , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 28:1 
(1987:Spring) p.93 

102 MEGARA AND TRIPODISCUS 

routes out of Isthmus. This was no gradual or evolutionary process. 
The island past was rejected, and the new city Megara ostentatiously 
gave itself a new physical and architectural setting on the mainland. 
This transformation lends weight to the ancient claim that Megara was 
a late establishment from the already Dorian south. 34 

DUKE UNIVERSITY 

October, 1986 

mother to be the daughter of Alcathous king of Megara: Apollod. 3.12.7. An Athenian 
tradition made her Athenian (Xen. Cyn. 1.9, Diod. 4.72.7); for Athenian claims to 
have ruled the primitive Megarid (first met at Hdt. 5.76) see Nilsson (supra n.29) 56f 
and Piccirilli (supra n.27) Ill. 

34 A version of this paper was read at the International Congress of Classical 
Studies in Dublin in August 1984. My particular thanks to Professors Domenico 
Musti and Michael Sakellariou.