Qualla: Megara https://qualla.com/megara en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 27 Jul 2026 10:40:37 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/b/8/megara-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Megara https://qualla.com/megara Megara: Introduction https://qualla.com/megara/ Photo credit Théodore Ralli, Public domain. The ancient Greeks had a saying: 'worthy of the Megarians' share.' It meant dishonored, disrespected, left with the worst portion. And Saint Jerome, writing in the 4th century AD, preserved another proverb about Megara's citizens: 'They build as if they are to live forever; they live as if they are to die tomorrow.' These are not exactly flattering epithets. But they stick to a city that was, for several centuries, one of the most consequential places in the ancient world — a city that founded Byzantium, fought wars on two oceans simultaneously, and, in a moment of tactical desperation, once attempted to defeat a besieging army by releasing flaming pigs against the enemy's war elephants.

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Image: Théodore Ralli | Public domain

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/b/8/megara-wp/swb8-megara-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Megara: Between Two Seas https://qualla.com/megara/ Photo credit The postcard was published by Aspiotis in c. 1915., Public domain. Megara's geography gave it an unusual strategic position. The city sat on the northern edge of the Isthmus of Corinth — the narrow land bridge connecting the Greek mainland to the Peloponnese — with a harbor on the Saronic Gulf to the east, Nisaea, and another on the Corinthian G...

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Image: The postcard was published by Aspiotis in c. 1915. | Public domain

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/b/8/megara-wp/swb8-megara-between-two-seas.mp3 0:06 2 full Megara: The City That Founded Byzantium https://qualla.com/megara/ Photo credit World Imaging, CC BY-SA 3.0. Megara's most enduring contribution to world history may be a colony it planted in the 7th century BC. Around 667 BC, colonists from Megara established a settlement on a rocky promontory between the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn — a site of extraordinary strategic value at the cr...

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Image: World Imaging | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/b/8/megara-wp/swb8-megara-the-city-that-founded-byzantium.mp3 0:06 3 full Megara: Philosophers, Poets, and the Father of Exercise https://qualla.com/megara/ Photo credit Catsimpoolas, Nicholas, Public domain. The 6th-century elegiac poet Theognis came from Megara, and his verses — some of the most personal surviving from archaic Greek poetry — are saturated with the politics of a city that cycled between democracy and oligarchy, wealth and resentment. Theognis wrote about betrayal, ab...

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Image: Catsimpoolas, Nicholas | Public domain

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/b/8/megara-wp/swb8-megara-philosophers-poets-and-the-father-of-exercise.mp3 0:06 4 full Megara: Wars, Decrees, and Burning Pigs https://qualla.com/megara/ Photo credit Tolisr, CC BY-SA 4.0. Megara spent much of the Classical period being squeezed between larger powers. The city shifted allegiances repeatedly — between Corinth and Athens, between the Spartan-dominated Peloponnesian League and the Athenian Delian League, between Macedon and the Achaean League. Athens ...

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Image: Tolisr | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/b/8/megara-wp/swb8-megara-wars-decrees-and-burning-pigs.mp3 0:06 5 full Megara: Megara Today https://qualla.com/megara/ Photo credit Théodore Ralli, Public domain. Modern Megara is a municipality of roughly 40,000 people in West Attica, about 34 km west of Athens on the A8 motorway and 37 km east of Corinth. The ancient city's two harbors are gone as functioning ports; the Saronic Gulf coast is occupied by suburbs including Nea Peramos and ...

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Image: Théodore Ralli | Public domain

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/b/8/megara-wp/swb8-megara-megara-today.mp3 0:06 6 full