Book 9
2.40
They say that the place now occupied by Lake Copais was formerly dry ground, and that it was tilled in all kinds of ways when it was subject to the Orchomenians, who lived near it. And this fact, accordingly, is adduced as an evidence of their wealth.
2.41
Aspledon was by some called Spledon, without the first syllable. Then the name, both of it and of the country, was changed to Eudeielos, perhaps because, from its “evening” inclination,Deilinou klimatos: apparently a false etymology of “Eudeielos,” based on the fact that the effect of the sun’s heat is greatest in the deile (evening). But the most likely meaning of eudeielos is “sunny,” the word being used of places exposed to the hot sun (e.g., see Pind. O. 3.111 and Gildersleeve’s note thereon), and having a southerly rather than an “evening” (westerly) inclination, as is the case with Aspledon (Buttmann Lexilogus, s.v. Δείλη sections 7-9). Butcher and Lang, and Murray, in their translations of the Odyssey, e.g., Hom. Od. 9.21, translate the word “clear seen,” and Cunliffe (Lexicon Homeric Dialect, “bright, shining,” as though used for εὔδηλος. Certainly Strabo, as the context shows, is thinking of the position of the place and of the sun’s heat (see 10. 2. 12, where he discusses “ eudeielos Ithaca” at length). it offered a special advantage peculiar to its inhabitants, especially the mildness of its winters; for the two ends of the day are coldest; and of these the evening is colder than the morning, for as night approaches the cold is more intense, and as night retires it abates. But the sun is a means of mitigating the cold. The place, therefore, that is warmed most by the sun at the coldest time is mildest in winter. Eudeielos is twenty stadia distant from Orchomenus. And the River Melas is between them.
