A'sius

(Ἄσιος), one of the earliest Greek poets, who lived, in all probability, about B. C. 700, though some critics would place him at an earlier and others at a later period. He was a native of Samos, and Athenaeus (iii. p. 125) calls him the old Samian poet. According to Pausanias (7.4.2), his father's name was Amphiptolemus.

Works

Epic and Elegiac Poems

Asius wrote epic and elegiac poems. The subject or subjects of his epic poetry are not known; and the few fragments which we now possess, consist of genealogical statements or remarks about the Samians, whose luxurious habits he describes with great naiveté and humour.

The fragments are preserved in Athenaeus, Pausanias, Strabo, Apollodorus, and a few others. His elegies were written in the regular elegiac metre, but all have perished with the exception of a very brief one which is preserved in Athenaeus. (l.c.)

Editions

The fragments of Asius are collected in N. Bach, Callini, Tyrtaei et Asii Samii quae supersunt, &c., Leipzig, 1831, 8vo.; in Dübner's edition of Hesiod, &c., Paris, 1840, and in Düntzer, Die Fragm. der Episch. Poes. p. 66, &c., Nachtrag, p. 31.

[L.S]