The History of Megara

The history of Megara is very much alike to our neighbor, Corinth. We are a respected and wealthy City-State, famous for their fabulous Textiles (a flexible cloth made from various materials). In the beginning, Megara was an early dependency of Corinth. The capacity colonists of Megara founded Megara Hyblaea, a small polis north of Syracuse, Sicily (currently a historic city in southern Italy, well known for its rich Greek history). Not much longer after the founding of Megara Hyblaea, Megara got engaged in a war of independence with Corinth. Megara won, and soon established Byzantium (today known as Istanbul, second largest city in Turkey) in 667 BCE, and Chalcedon in 685 BCE. Megara was well known for its wealth in historical times. Megara's defection for the Spartan "ruled" Peloponnesian League (the Peloponnesian League was kind of like a peace treaty (in Peloponnesus, of course) from the 6th to the 4th centuries BC) was one of the reasons for the First Peloponnesian War. Megara was one of Sparta's allies. The war mainly happened because Sparta and Megara were envious of the growth rate of the Athenian Empire. In the terms of the Peace Treaty of 445 BC, Megara was returned to the Peloponnesian League. Even though Megara was an ally of Sparta, at the Olympics, they would do anything (almost) to take them down.