Location information

Asine

  Eth. Asinaios, Asineus. An Asine in Laconia is mentioned by Strabo (viii. p. 363) as situated between Amathus (a false reading for Psamathus) and Gythium; and Stephanus B. (s. v.) speaks of a Laconian as well as of a Messenian Asine. Polybius (v. 19) likewise relates that Philip, in his invasion of Laconia, suffered a repulse before Asine, which appears from his narrative to have been near Gythium. But notwithstanding these authorities, it may be questioned whether there was a town of the name of Asine in Laconia. Pausanias, in describing the same event as Polybius, says that Philip was repulsed before Las, which originally stood on the summit of Mt. Asia. (Paus. iii. 24. § 6.) There can therefore be no doubt that the Las of Pausanias and the Asine of Polybius are the same place; and the resemblance between the names Asia and Asine probably led Polybius into the error of calling Las by the latter name; an error which was the more likely to arise, because Herodotus and Thucydides speak of the Messenian Asine as a town in Laconia, since Messenia formed a part of Laconia at the time when they wrote. The error of Polybius was perpetuated by Strabo and Stephanus, and has found its way into most modern works.

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

Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD)
• http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Per...