26 MEG 
MEE'TING,_/i An aflembly; a convention.—Since the 
ladies have been left out of all meetings except parties at 
play, our converfation hath degenerated. Swift. —An in¬ 
terview.—Let’s be revenged on him; let’s appoint him a 
meeting, and lead him on with a fine baited delay. Snake- 
Jpeare. —A conventicle; an aflembly of difl'enters.—A con¬ 
flux : as, The meeting of two rivers. 
MEE'TING-HOUSE, f. Place where difl'enters aflem- 
ble to worfhip.—His heart mifgave him that the churches 
were fo many meeting-hovfes ; but I foon made him eafy. 
AddiJ'on. 
MEE'TKA, a country of Africa, weft of Bergoo. 
MEE'TLY, adv. Fitly; properly. 
MEE'TNESS, f. Fitnefs; propriety. 
MEF'LESS, a town of Bohemia, in the circle of Ko- 
nigingratz: fourteen miles north-eaft of Konigingratz. 
MEGABY'ZUS, one of the noble Perfians who con- 
fpired againft the ufurper Smerdis. He was fet over an 
army in Europe by king Darius, where he took Perinthus 
and conquered all Thrace. He was greatly efteemed by 
his fovereign.—A fon of Zopyrus, fatrap to Darius, who 
conquered Egypt, &c.—A fatrap of Artaxerxes. He re¬ 
volted from his king, and defeated two large armies that 
had been fent againft him. The interference of his friends 
reftored him to the king’s favour; and he lhowed his attach¬ 
ment to Artaxerxes by killing a lion which threatened 
his life in hunting. This aft of affeftion in Megabyzus 
was looked upon with envy by the king. He was dis¬ 
carded, and afterwards reconciled to the monarch by 
means of his mother. He died in the feventy-fixth year 
of his age, B.C. 447, greatly regretted and efteemed. 
MEGAi'RA, in mythology, one of the three furies. 
She is reprefented with ferpents on her head, and two dif- 
tinguilhed ones over her forehead, as her filters have; 
and, like them, with torches. She is not mentioned fo 
frequently by the Roman poets as the others are. Virgil 
gives us a defcriptive pifture of her, where he is fpeaking 
of the punilhment of the Lapitha;; who were faid to be 
always placed round a table very richly and plentifully fet 
out, with a loofe piece of rock hanging over their heads, 
as juft ready to fall; and this fury attending clofe by, to 
watch and menace them, the moment they endeavoured 
to tafte any one of the tempting things fet before them. 
JEn. vi. 607. Her name is from the Greek /xiyuigv, to 
envy, to hate mortally; and the fight of her is faid to 
have difmayed Hercules more than the afpeft of Pluto 
and all hell. 
MEGAI'ZEL, a town of Egypt: fix miles north of 
Roletta. 
MEGA'LA, a town of Tunis: three miles north-eaft 
of Spaitla. 
MEGALAR'TIA, f. [Greek.] A feftival in honour of 
Ceres, being the fame with Thelinophoria. 
MEGALASCLE'PIA, f. A feftival in honour of JEf- 
culapius. See Asclepia. 
MEGALE'SIA, opMegalenses Lum.feafts and games 
in honour of Cybele, or Rhea, the mother of the gods, 
kept on the 12th of April by the Romans, and famous 
for great rejoicings and diverfions of various forts. The 
Galli carried the image of the goddefs. along the city, 
with found of drums and other mulic, in imitation of the 
noife they made to prevent Saturn from hearing the cries 
of his infant fon Jupiter, when he was difpoled to devour 
him. The fports were called megidefm, from the Greek 
u.tyx>.Y), great, Cybele being accounted the great goddels. 
MEGALE'Sf AN, adj. [from Megalejia.} Belonging to 
the games inftituted in honour of the goddefs Cybele. Scoit. 
MEG'ALI CAMME'NI. See Kameni, vol. xi. 
MEGALOG'RAPHY, J\ [^eya?, Gr. great, and y$a.<pu, 
to write.] The art of drawing piftures at large. Scutt. 
MEGALONI'SI, a Imall ifland in the Mediterranean,, 
near the coaft of the Morea: two miles eaftof Leucadia. 
MEGALOPH'ONOS, J'. [Gr. i^iyot;, great, and (pasn, 
a voice.] One who has a remarkable loud voice. Scott. 
MEGALOP'OLIS, as it is written by Strabo, or Meg'ale 
MEG 
Po'lis, as by Ptolemy and Paufanias ; in ancient geogra¬ 
phy, “a large city,” as its name imports, in the fouth- 
ern part of Arcadia, upon the river Heliflon. Paufanias 
obferves, that it was the mod modern of the cities of Ar¬ 
cadia, if we except thofe which had beep renewed by Ro¬ 
man colonies after the viftory of Oftavius over Antony. 
It owed its foundation to the counfels of Epaminondas, 
who, in the year 365 B.C. being defirous of keeping the 
Lacedxmonians in that ftate of fubjeftion to which they 
were reduced, induced the Arcadians to eftablifti this city, 
and to fettle in it a numerous colony, collefted from dif¬ 
ferent cities, fo that it might ferve as a fortrefs and a bul¬ 
wark againft Sparta. However, in the year 224 or 225 
B. C. it fell, partly by furprife, and partly by a violation 
of treaties, under the power of Cleomenes king of Sparta. 
The greater number of the inhabitants retired to Mef- 
fenia; but, emboldened by the counfels and example of 
Philopcemen, they refufed the offer made them by Cleo¬ 
menes, of remaining in their own city on condition of 
concurring in the Achaean league. Philopcemen, upon 
their return to Arcadia, encouraged them to rebuild their 
city, and to adorn it with temples and magnificent edi¬ 
fices, which reftored its former fplendour; and we learn 
from Polybius that, next to Athens, Megalopolis was the 
grandeft and molt fplendid city of Greece. 
The fite of Megalopolis, which was for fome time con- 
fidered to be Leonari in the Morea, is now admitted to 
be the modern Sinauo ; and the identity of the latter is 
eltablilhed by the remains of the different roads which 
united at Megalopolis. The ruins of a church and of 
thelladium areftill difcernible; tut the town is a wretched 
reprefentative of its predeceflor, and confifts merely of 
an affemblage of miferable huts of mud or clay. 
MEGALOP'SYCHY, f. [p.iyc *?, Gr. great, and 
the foul.] Greatnefs of mind; magnanimity. Scott. 
MEG'ALUS, a man’s name. 
MEGAM'ETER, J'. A kind of micrometer. 
MEGANI'RA, in fabulous hiftory, the wife of Celeus, 
king of Eleufis in Attica. She was mother to Triptole- 
mus, to whom Ceres, as Ihe travelled over Attica, taught 
agriculture. She received divine honours after death; 
and Ihe had an altar raifed to her, near the fountain 
where Ceres had firft been feen when Ihe arrived in At¬ 
tica. 
ME'GAR al SHU'AB. See Madian, vol. xiv. 
MEGA'RA, a daughter of Creon king of Thebes, 
given in marriage to Hercules, becaufe he had delivered 
the Thebans from the tyranny of the Orchomenians. 
When Hercules went to hell by order of Euryllheus, vio¬ 
lence was offered to Megara by Lycus, a Theban exile; 
and Ihe would have yielded to her ravilher, had not Her¬ 
cules returned that moment and punilhed him with death. 
This murder difpleafed Juno ; and Ihe rendered Hercules 
fo delirious, that he killed Megara and the three children 
he had by her in a fit of madnefs, thinking them to be 
wild beafts. Some fay that Megara did not perilh by the 
hand of her hulband, but that he afterwards married her 
to his friend Iolas. The names of Megara’s children by 
Hercules were Creontiades, Therimacus, and Deicoon. 
Hi/gin. fab. 82. 
MEGA'RA, in ancient geography, the capital of the 
territory of the Megareans, which has been commonly 
compril'ed in Attica, bounded eaftward by mountains, 
and extending weftward as far as a diftrift of the ifthmus 
of Corinth. Megara was fituated at a diftance from the 
fea. Its port was called Nijiiea, from Nifus fon of Pan- 
dion II. who obtained Megaris for his portion, when the 
kingdom of Athens was divided into four lots by his fa¬ 
ther. He founded the town, which was eighteen ftadia 
or two miles and a quarter from the city, but united 
with it, as the Pirreus with Athens, by long walls. It 
had a temple of Ceres. “The roof (fays Paufanias) may 
be fuppofed to have fallen through age.” The fite (as 
Dr. Chandler informs us) is now covered with rubbifh,. 
among which are Handing fome ruinous churches. The 
place. 
