‘This City of Ours’: Fear, Discord, and the Persian War at Megara

Abstract

In this paper, the author demonstrates that the Persian War stories told at Megara were parochial in nature not just because they evinced a focus on that polis, but also (and more importantly) because they conveyed a tone and outlook that were characteristically Megarian. The themes of fear and discord provide the basis for the present study. Although largely ignored in other parochial traditions across Greece, they feature prominently at Megara (particularly in the Theognidea) because they reflected social and political realities specific to that locality.