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MEGALESIA

Volume 14 · 194 words · 1842 Edition

and MEGALENSIS LUDI, feasts and games celebrated by the Romans in honour of Cybele or Rhea, the mother of the gods, on the 12th of April, and famous for great rejoicings and diversions of various sorts. The Galli carried the image of the goddess along the city, with the sound of drums and other music, in imitation of the noise which MEIGARIA, in Ancient Geography, a noble city, the capital of the territory of Megaris, which for many years carried on war with the Corinthians and Athenians. It had for some time a school of philosophers, called the Megarici, who were successors of Euclid the Socratic; a native of Megara. Their dialect was the Doric. Megara was situated at a distance from the sea, and about midway between Athens and Corinth. Its port was called Nisus, from Nisos, son of Pandion the second, who obtained Megaris as his portion, when the kingdom of Athens was divided into four lots by his father. He founded the town, which was eighteen stadia or two miles and a quarter from the city, but united with it, as the Piraeus was with Athens, by means of long walls.