Babylas is a proper name, copied mistakenly from the headword of beta 10. Probably the original word written here was βαβύας , the reading of the headword in Hesychius beta16 (βαβύας: βόρβορος, πηλός (babyas: mire, clay). A similar entry in Etymologicum Magnum 186.1 probably identifies this as a dialect word: βακίας [βαβύκας: MS M]: βόρβορος, πηλός, ὑπὸ Ταραντίνων ('bakias [or babykas]: mire, clay, in Taratine dialect']. To this can perhaps be related an entry in Hesychius beta126: βακχόαν: βόθρον. Αἰολεῖς ('bakchoan: pit [perhaps a clay pit or cess pit?]. Aiolians [sc. dialect]), and two other entries which Latte, in his edition of Hesychius, brackets as corrupt, in that they seem to be garbled doublets for beta126: beta99: βάκοα: βάθρον ('bakoa: a pedestal'), and beta113: βακοίας: πηλός ('bakoias: clay'). A plausible theory is that a word like babu(k)as was glossed as a cess-pit or clay-pit. The word itself was garbled in transmission in various directions, and in the glosses there was confusion between βόθρον ('pit') and the sound-alike βάθρον ('pedestal') and eventually βῆμα ('rostrum') crept into it as a synonym for 'pedestal'. Apart from βαβύκα , all the other putative headwords discussed here, (βακίας, βαβύα, βάκοα, βακχόα, βακοίας ) are unattested elsewhere. Given that Tarentum (Taras) originated as a Spartan colony, and that streams in the Eurotas valley near Sparta tend to be marshy and mirey in their lower courses, it may be worth noting that Plutarch Lykourgos 6.2 (cf. Pelopidas 13.3) records Babyka as the name of a stream near central Sparta (cf. Hesychius beta18 where Babyka is glossed as 'bridge' (perhaps over the Babyka stream) and beta17 where Babya is glossed as 'Cheimarros', an alternative name for the Babyka stream for which Plutarch (Lyk. 6) cites Aristotle). Adler reports that the lemma is present in Lexicon Ambrosianum 38. For βῆμα ('rostrum') see also beta 257, beta 258.