The Greeks in Bactria and India c25.6

c25.6

The corruption of -μηδία into -δημία would be easy and obvious; Εὐθυδημία makes such good sense so long as one does not think about it, and the reasons which have affected the modern writer are precisely those which would have affected the ancient scribe. But if the original text gave the obvious Εὐθυδημία, no reason can be found for its alteration in almost every MS into the meaningless Εὐθυμηδία. It is just possible that Εὐθυμηδής was a (very rare) Greek name;³ but cities were not named after commoners, and though a military colony might be (pp. 6, 11), no one would suggest that Sāgala was a military colony. No modern writer has in fact adopted Εὐθυμηδία. It is clearly a corruption; but one cannot suppose almost universal corruption of anything so obvious as Εὐθυδημία.