Listed 1 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for wider area of: "ASSINI Ancient city GYTHIO" .
ASSINI (Ancient city) GYTHIO
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
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