Alabanda in Frigia. Su un vecchio problema erodoteo (Hdt. 8.136.1)

The mention in Hdt. 8.136.1 of the city of Alabanda «in Phrygia» has long been considered inconsistent with what we know about the only other well-attested city of Alabanda in Caria. A philological approach to the problem reveals that there is no reason neither to reject the information Herodotus gives us in 8.136.1 nor to emendate the text transmitted by the manuscripts. As the more economical solution is to think of two different homonymous cities, the second part of this contribute is devoted to articulate a new identification proposal for Alabanda in Phrygia: on the basis of some information Stephanus of Byzanthium reports in his lexicon, it is argued that Alabanda could be the pre-Greek name of Hierapolis in Phrygia, an Hellenistic refoundation whose roots go back as far as the 7th century B.C.