The Greeks in Bactria and India c25.8

c25.8

We must therefore follow the rule *praestat lectio difficillima* and turn to Εὐθυμέδια. This cannot possibly be a corruption of Εὐθυδημία; and it is not easy to see how Εὐθυμηδία, composed apparently of two words well known to any scribe, could become Εὐθυμέδια, while -μέδια would infallibly become -μηδία owing to the mental pull of the well-known name Μηδία. Now Εὐθυμέδια as it stands is not only meaningless but wrongly accented; place-names ending in -ια after a short vowel are paroxytone,⁴ and it ought to be Εὐθυμεδία. The accent shows that the right form must have been Εὐθυ- μέδεια. This could easily be corrupted on the one hand into Εὐθυμήδεια and on the other into Εὐθυμηδία; for Μηδία (the country) was sometimes spelt (and accented) Μήδεια,¹ and the corruption therefore ran Εὐθυμέδεια —Εὐθυμήδεια—Εὐθυμηδία. That Εὐθυμέδεια would have been corrupted is certain, for no scribe would have understood it. I have not traced the first appearance of this word, but prior to Renou’s edition it was generally supposed that it had MS authority; one must take it from Renou that this is not so. It is a properly formed feminine name, one of a class (p. 248 n. 2); but it has been generally discarded for Εὐθυμηδία because writers could not explain it. I gave the right meaning long ago,² but did not know enough at the time to account for it; it is now extremely obvious (p. 248). Ptolemy then wrote Σάγαλα ἢ καὶ Εὐθυμέδεια.