Megara Iblea (Megara Hyblaea)

It was unquestionably a Greek colony, deriving its origin from the Megara in Greece; and the circumstances attending its foundation are related in detail by Thucydides. He tells us that a colony from Megara, under the command of a leader named Lamis (Ancient Greek: Λάμις), arrived in Sicily about the time that Leontini was founded by the Chalcidic colonists, and settled themselves first near the mouth of the river Pantagias, at a place called Trotilon (Latin: Trotilus, modern Brucoli). From there they removed to Leontini itself, where they dwelt for a time together with the Chalcidians; but were soon afterwards expelled by them, and next established themselves on the promontory or peninsula of Thapsos (Latin: Thapsus, modern Magnisi), near Syracuse. They again relocated after the death of Lamis, and, at the suggestion of Hyblon, a Sicilian chief of the surrounding country, finally settled at a place afterwards called the Hyblaean Megara. (Thuc. vi. 4.) Scymnus of Chios follows a different tradition, as he describes the establishment of the Chalcidians at Naxos and that of the Megarians at Hybla as contemporary, and both preceding the foundation of Syracuse, 734 BC. Strabo also adopts the same view, representing Megara as founded about the same time with Naxos (735 BC), and before Syracuse. (Scymn. Ch. 271-76; Strab. vi. p. 269.) It is impossible to reconcile the two accounts, but that of Thucydides is probably the most trustworthy. Thus the foundation of Megara may be placed about 726 BC. Professor Miller, in her reinvestigation of ancient source materials has determined that they point to various dates of foundation from 758 BC (per the Chronikon of Eusebius) to 728 BC (from her reconstructions of dates from Thucydides). Of its earlier history we have scarcely any…

Excavations carried on in 1891 led to the discovery of the northern portion of the western town wall, which in one section served at the same time as an embankment against floods—it was apparently more conspicuous in the time of Philipp Cluver, (Sicilia antiqua, Leiden, 1619) p. 133—of an extensive necropolis, about 1500 tombs of which have been explored, and of a deposit of votive objects from a temple. The harbour lay to the north of the town.
In the mid-seventh century, the city was organised according to a regularised plan. An agora emerged with stoas on its north and eastern sides. This is one of the earliest known agoras.