Asine () was a town of

ancient Laconia Laconia or Lakonia (, , ) is a historical and Administrative regions of Greece, administrative region of Greece located on the southeastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. Its administrative capital is Sparti (municipality), Sparta. The word ...

. According to

Strabo Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-si ...

, it was situated between Amathus (a false reading for Psamathus) and Gythium. It was often under

Sparta Sparta was a prominent city-state in Laconia in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (), while the name Sparta referred to its main settlement in the Evrotas Valley, valley of Evrotas (river), Evrotas rive ...

n control.

Polybius Polybius (; , ; ) was a Greek historian of the middle Hellenistic period. He is noted for his work , a universal history documenting the rise of Rome in the Mediterranean in the third and second centuries BC. It covered the period of 264–146 ...

relates that

Philip V of Macedon Philip V (; 238–179 BC) was king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon from 221 to 179 BC. Philip's reign was principally marked by the Social War (220–217 BC), Social War in Greece (220-217 BC) ...

, in his invasion of Laconia, suffered a repulse before Asine (218 BCE), which appears from his narrative to have been near Gythium. Pausanias, in describing the same event as Polybius, says that Philip was repulsed before "Las", which originally stood on the summit of "Mount Asia". 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 Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...

and

Thucydides Thucydides ( ; ; BC) was an Classical Athens, Athenian historian and general. His ''History of the Peloponnesian War'' recounts Peloponnesian War, the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been d ...

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

and

Stephanus of Byzantium Stephanus or Stephen of Byzantium (; , ''Stéphanos Byzántios''; centuryAD) was a Byzantine grammarian and the author of an important geographical dictionary entitled ''Ethnica'' (). Only meagre fragments of the dictionary survive, but the epit ...

. During the Roman period Asine belonged to Sparta although most of the other towns in the area were part of the Union of Free Laconians. The site was resettled in 1451 as Skoutari. Its site is located near the modern Skoutari.

References

Populated places in ancient Laconia Former populated places in Greece Cities in ancient Peloponnese {{AncientLaconia-geo-stub

See also

References