PEGAE
PEGAE or
PAGAE (
Πηγαί, Dor.
Παγαί: Eth.
Παγαῖος), a town of Megaris, on the Alcyonian or Corinthian gulf.
It was the harbour of Megaris on the western coast, and was the most important place in the country next to the capital.
According to Strabo (
viii. p.334) it was situated on the narrowest part of the Megaric isthmus, the distance from Pagae to Nisaea being 120 stadia. When the Megarians joined Athens in B.C. 455, the Athenians garrisoned Pegae, and its harbour was of service to them in sending out an expedition against the northern coast of Peloponnesus. (
Thuc. 1.103,
111.) The Athenians retained possession of Pegae a short time after Megara revolted from them in B.C. 454; but, by the thirty years' truce made in the same year, they surrendered the place to the Megarians. (
Thuc. 1.114,
115.)
At one period of the Peloponnesian War (B.C. 424) we find Pegae held by the aristocratical exiles from Megara. (
Thuc. 4.66.) Pegae continued to exist till a late period, and under the Roman emperors was a place of sufficient importance to coin its own money. Strabo (
viii. p.380) calls it
τὸ τῶν Μεγαρέων φρούριον. Pausanias saw there a chapel of the hero Aegialeus, who fell at Glisas in the second expedition of the Argives against Thebes, but who was buried at this place.
He also saw near the road to Pegae, a rock covered with marks of arrows, which were supposed to have been made by a body of the Persian cavalry
[p. 2.561]of Mardonius, who in the night had discharged their arrows at the rock under the impulse of Artemis, mistaking it for the enemy.
In commemoration of this event, there was a brazen statue of Artemis Soteira at Pegae. (
Paus. 1.44.4.) Pegae is also mentioned in the following passages:--Strab. ix. pp. 400, 409;
Paus. 1.41.8;
Ptol. 3.15.6;
Steph. B. sub voce Mela, 3.3.10;
Plin. Nat. 4.7. s. 11; Hierocl. p. 645;
Tab. Peut., where it is called Pache. Its site is now occupied by the port of
Psathó, not far from the shore of which are found the remains of an ancient fortress. (Leake,
Northern Greece, vol. ii. p. 407.)
