Nisa (Megaris)

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Nisa (Ancient Greek: Νίσα) was a city in ancient Megaris. The geographer Strabo said its people later left to form a colony near Mount Cithaeron, and that the city did not exist in his time.

In Megara’s founding myths, which the Boeotians preserved and others in Greece adopted, Nisa was an early name for Megara and its port. During the reign of Pylas, when Athens was ruled by the Metionidae, Pandion II fled to Megara, married Pylas’s daughter, and took his throne. The Metionidae were driven from Athens, and when Pandion’s lands were divided among his four sons, the youngest, Nisus, received Megaris. The city was named Nisa after him, and the port-town he built also bore the name.

When Minos attacked Nisus, Megareus, son of Poseidon, came from Onchestus in Boeotia to help and was buried in the city, which was then called Megara after him. From then on, the name Nisa, later Nisaea, was used only for the port-town. The people of Megara were sometimes called Nisaei to distinguish them from the Megarians in Sicily, their colonies.