Note 487 — Chapter III · MEMBERS OF THE HELLENIC AGGREGATE, SEPARATELY TAKEN.—GREEKS NORTH OF PELOPONNESUS.

See an admirable topographical description of the north part of Bœotia,—the lake Kôpaïs and its environs, in Forchhammer’s Hellenika, pp. 159-186, with an explanatory map. The two long and laborious tunnels constructed by the old Orchomenians for the drainage of the lake, as an aid to the insufficiency of the natural Katabothra, are there very clearly laid down: one goes to the sea, the other into the neighboring lake Hylika, which is surrounded by high rocky banks and can take more water without overflowing. The lake Kôpaïs is an inclosed basin, receiving all the water from Doris and Phokis through the Kêphisus. A copy of Forchhammer’s map will be found at the end of the present volume.

Forchhammer thinks that it was nothing but the similarity of the name Itônea (derived from ἰτέα, a willow-tree) which gave rise to the tale of an emigration of people from the Thessalian to the Bœotian Itônê (p. 148).

The Homeric Catalogue presents Kôpæ, on the north of the lake, as Bœotian, but not Orchomenus nor Asplêdôn (Iliad, ii. 502).