REFERENCES
1 Bichler, Reinhold. 2007. “Herodots Historien unter dem Aspekt der Raumerfassung.” In Wahrnehmung und Erfassung geographischer Räume in der Antike, edited by Michael Rathmann, 67–80. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern.
2 Bichler, Reinhold. 2014. “Der Antagonismus von Asien und Europa: Eine historiographische Konzeption aus Kleinasien?” In Der Beitrag Kleinasiens zur Kultur‐ und Geistesgeschichte der Griechisch‐Römischen Antike, edited by Josef Fischer, 9–20. Vienna: ÖAW.
3 Prontera, Francesco. 2011. “L’Asia nella geografia di Erodoto: uno spazio in costruzione.” In Herodot und das Persische Weltreich—Herodotus and the Persian Empire, edited by Robert Rollinger, Brigitte Truschnegg, and Reinhold Bichler, 179–96. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
4 Rollinger, Robert. 2003. “The Western Expansion of the ‘Median Empire’: A Re‐examination.” In Continuity of Empires (?): Assyria, Media, Persia, edited by Giovanni B. Lanfranchi, Michael Roaf, and Robert Rollinger, 289–320. Padua: S.a.r.g.o.n.
5 Thomas, Rosalind. 2000. Herodotus in Context: Ethnography, Science and the Art of Persuasion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
FURTHER READING
1 Martín, César. 2014. “When Greece Came to India. Herodotus and the Eastern Boundaries of the World.” In Central Asia in Antiquity, edited by Borja Antela‐Bernádez, 53–60. Oxford: Archaeopress.
2 Romm, James. 2006. “Herodotus and the Natural World.” In The Cambridge Companion to Herodotus, edited by Carolyn Dewald and John Marincola, 178–91. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
3 Wiesehöfer, Josef. 2007. “Ein König erschließt und imaginiert sein Imperium: Persische Reichsordnung und persische Reichsbilder zur Zeit Dareios I (522–486 v.Chr.).” In Wahrnehmung und Erfassung geographischer Räume in der Antike, edited by Michael Rathmann, 31–40. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern.
ASIA (Ἀσίη, ἡ) wife of Prometheus
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
In his discussion of the difficulties raised by the names for individual continents, Herodotus says that many Greeks think that ASIA was named after the wife of PROMETHEUS, but the Lydians claim otherwise, citing their own ASIES son of COTYS son of MANES as the eponym (4.45.3).
Herodotus is alone among our surviving sources in this regard (Fowler 2013, 113–14). Asia appears in HESIOD’s Theogony (359) as one of the daughters of Oceanus. But our earliest clear evidence for Prometheus’ wife gives her name as Hesione (Acousilaus BNJ 2 F34; Aesch. PV 560). Asia appears later as the mother of Prometheus (Lycoph. Alex. 1283; Apollod. Bibl. 1.2.2–3) while Clymene is named as his wife (e.g., Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 1.17.3).
SEE ALSO: Boundaries; Geography; Lydia; Ocean
REFERENCE
1 Fowler, Robert L. 2013. Early Greek Mythography. Vol. 2, Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
ASIES (Ἀσίης, ὁ)
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
Herodotus mentions Asies in his discussion of the difficulties raised by the names for individual continents. While many Greeks think that ASIA was named after the wife of PROMETHEUS, the Lydians claim otherwise, citing Asies son of COTYS son of MANES, from whom the tribe called Asias in SARDIS received its name (4.45.3). That tribe is attested at Sardis in a Roman‐era inscription (SEG 19‐714; Pedley 1972, 8). The name “Asia” may derive ultimately from Hittite Assuwa, which referred to a region of western Anatolia (Bryce 2009, 83; Talamo 1979, 99–107).
SEE ALSO: Asia, wife of Prometheus; Geography; Lydia
REFERENCES
1 Bryce, Trevor. 2009. The Routledge Handbook of the Peoples and Places of Western Asia: The Near East from the Early Bronze Age to the Fall of the Persian Empire. London and New York: Routledge.
2 Pedley, John Griffiths. 1972. Ancient Literary Sources on Sardis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
3 Talamo, Clara. 1979. La Lidia arcaica. Bologna: Pàtron.
ASINE (Ἀσίνη, ἡ)
NATASHA BERSHADSKY
Center for Hellenic Studies
Spartan perioecic settlement, on the western coast of the Messenian Gulf (BA 58 B4; modern Koroni), inhabited by DRYOPES (Paus. 4.34.9–12). When Herodotus lists the Greeks who came to the ISTHMUS of CORINTH to defend the PELOPONNESE against the Persians in 480 BCE (8.72), he does not mention Asine, despite the fact that he refers to it immediately afterwards as one of the Dryopian CITIES in the list of the ethnic groups inhabiting the Peloponnese (8.73.2). Herodotus claims that all of the Peloponnesian poleis that he has not enumerated as resisting the Persians remained neutral, which for him amounts to medizing (8.73.3). Since Asine was a perioecic Spartan city, it is not clear whether it was implicitly included in the list of the defenders as a part of the Lacedaemonians, or actually remained neutral.
Pausanias narrates that the Dryopes of Asine had lived in the Argolid, but the Argives destroyed their town and the population was given refuge by the Spartans (Paus. 2.36.4–5, 4.8.3; cf. Strabo 8.6.11/C373). The archaeological record of Argolic Asine is consistent with this narrative, showing a distinctive material culture and a violent destruction c. 720–710 BCE. According to Pausanias, the Asineans of Messenia were the only Dryopes enthusiastically embracing their ethnic identity (Paus. 4.34.11), which was perhaps advantageous in distinguishing themselves from the MESSENIANS (Luraghi 2008, 40–43). The Asineans of Messenia asserted that their progenitor Dryops (whom they honored with cult) was a son of APOLLO, and that they were invited to live in the Argolid by king EURYSTHEUS, when HERACLES expelled the Dryopes from their ancient homeland in central Greece (Paus. 4.34.10–11; the prevalent variant of the MYTH claimed that Heracles forcibly settled the Dryopes in the Argolic Asine).
SEE ALSO: Argos; Cardamyle; Ethnicity; Medize; perioeci; Sparta
REFERENCE
1 Luraghi, Nino. 2008. The Ancient Messenians: Constructions of Ethnicity and Memory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
FURTHER READING
IACP no. 313 (559).
ASMACH (Ἀσμάχ)
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
Herodotus states that the Asmach were Egyptian deserters (Gk. automoloi), supposedly 240,000 members of the warrior class whose
