AT A GLANCE
Why go?
Megara Hyblaea is an extraordinary archaeological site near Augusta, Sicily, preserving the oldest known street grid of a Greek colonial city in the western Mediterranean. Founded around 728 BC by settlers from Megara in Greece, this was among the very first Greek colonies on the island—and its remarkably preserved urban plan lets you walk through a city layout from the archaic period, laid out with mathematical precision more than 2,700 years ago.↗↗↗
The site sits on two plateaus above the Ionian Sea, about 20 km north of Syracuse. You can trace the archaic agora where temples and stoas once stood, follow the straight colonial streets, and see Hellenistic fortifications built in desperate haste against a Roman threat. It is a quiet, open-air experience far from the crowds of more famous Sicilian sites.↗↗
One of Sicily's First Greek Cities
According to Thucydides, a band of Megarian colonists led by a figure named Lamis arrived on Sicily's east coast in the late eighth century BC. After brief stops at Trotilon (near modern Brucoli) and Leontini—where they initially coexisted with the Chalcidian settlers before being expelled—they accepted an invitation from Hyblon, a local Sicilian chief, and settled on a promontory that took its name from him: Hyblaean Megara. The ancient Greeks called it τὰ Μέγαρα Ὑβλαία.
