Aspledon participated in the Trojan War and is listed in the Homeric Catalogue of Ships (Il. 2.511).
Aspledon, a son of Poseidon and the nymph Mideia (Chersias, ap. Paus. ix. 38.6); according to others, he was a son of Orchomenus and brother of Clymenus and Amphidicus (Steph. Byz. s. v. (Aspledon), or a son of Presbon and Sterope (Eustath. ad Hom.). He was regarded as the founder of Aspledon, an ancient town of the Minyans in Boeotia.
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, 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.
This extract is from: The Geography of Strabo (ed. H. L. Jones, 1924), Cambridge. Harvard University Press. Cited Jan 2003 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains comments & interesting hyperlinks.
Some scholars place the ancient site in the location called Polygyra, to the NE of the Dionysos village, while others identify Polygyra with the ancient city of Tegyra and locate Aspledon near the Pyrgos village (PLB).
Eth. Aspledonios. Also called Spledon, an ancient city of Boeotia, mentioned by Homer (Il. ii. 510), distant 20 stadia from Orchomenus. The river Melas flowed between the two cities. (Strab. ix. p. 416; Plin. iv. 7. s. 12; Steph. B. s. v.; Etym. M. s. v.) Strabo says (l. c.) that it was subsequently called Eudeilus (Eudeielos), from its sunny situation; but Pausanias (ix. 38. § 9) relates that it was abandoned in his time from a want of water. The town is said to have derived its name from Aspledon, a son of Poseidon and the nymph Mideia. The site of Aspledon is uncertain. Leake places it at Tzamali (Northern Greece, vol. ii.), but Forchhammer (Hellenica), with more probability, at Avro-Kastro.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited May 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
see Orchomenus
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