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The Megarians

Greeks of Megara on the Isthmus, fighting Xerxes and Mardonius, 480-479 BCE

In the game: Level 11: The Finale

The Megarians were the people of Megara, a Greek city between Attica and the Peloponnese. Herodotus says they sent ships to Salamis and a large body of hoplites to Plataea. They are a minor people in the Persian story, but they stood in the Greek line at Plataea and suffered in the fighting before and after the battle.

In the game: The game names the Megarians only in the Chronicle, the decrees and the field briefings, and gives them no mechanic of their own. Their placing against Mardonius's Greek allies at Plataea follows Herodotus 9.31.

A city on the Isthmus

Ancient account

Megara lay between Attica and the Peloponnese, on the land route into the Peloponnese. Herodotus counts the Megarians among the Greeks who stood against Xerxes. He does not list them among those who gave earth and water to the King, but the list of such cities is his own and may be incomplete.

Herodotus 7.132

Ships at Salamis

Ancient account

Herodotus says that Megara sent twenty ships to Salamis. This was a modest contribution beside the Athenian and Corinthian fleets. The figure is his, and no Persian source mentions the Megarians.

Herodotus 8.45

Three thousand hoplites at Plataea

Ancient account

In his list of the Greek army at Plataea, Herodotus gives the Megarians 3,000 hoplites. He sets them in the long line of city contingents between the Spartan right and the Athenian left. The numbers are his own report and are not confirmed by any document of the time.

Herodotus 9.28

Facing the Greeks of the King's side

Ancient account

Herodotus says Mardonius set the Greeks who had joined him against the Athenians, Plataeans and Megarians. These were the Boeotians, Locrians, Malians, Thessalians and a thousand Phocians. He says the Persians themselves were set against the Lacedaemonians. In this planned order the Megarians faced Greeks, not Persians.

Herodotus 9.31

The cavalry at Erythrae and the pursuit

Ancient account

Before the main battle, Herodotus says, the Megarians held the most exposed ground at Erythrae and were hard pressed by Masistius's cavalry. They called for help, and Athenian volunteers came forward, and Masistius was killed in the fighting that followed. After the Persian camp fell, Herodotus says Theban horse cut down some Megarians and Phliasians in the plain.

Herodotus 9.21-22; 9.69

Names on the Serpent Column

In the record

The Greeks dedicated a bronze serpent column at Delphi from the spoils of Plataea, inscribed with the names of the cities that fought. Its coils survive in Istanbul, where it was later taken, and the Megarians are among the names cut on them. This is the Greek record of their share in the war, not a Persian one.

Serpent Column inscription; Herodotus 9.81