Asius of Samos

Asius of Samos (Greek: Ἄσιος Asios) was an ancient Greek poet whose work survives in the form of fragments quoted by other ancient authors.^[1] All that is known about the man is that he was from Samos and that his father's name was Amphiptolemus.^[2] His era is inferred from the style and content of the remains, which suit the archaizing movement of the sixth century BCE.^[3] Antiquity left no titles or synopses, so the number, scope and focus of his works is unknown, but to judge from the ancient testimonia and the content of the fragments themselves he appears to have specialized in genealogical epic^[4] comparable to the fragmentary Hesiodic Catalogue of Women.^[5] Asius' preserved genealogies show a preoccupation with Hesiod's Boeotia, in addition to details concerning his own native Samos.^[6] Besides the 13 fragments surviving from his hexametric poetry, there is a short and enigmatic fragment in elegiacs.^[4]

Editions and translations

• Kinkel, G. (1877), Epicorum Graecorum fragmenta, vol. 1, Leipzig.
• Bernabé, A. (1988), Poetae epici Graecae, pars i, Leipzig, ISBN 978-3-598-71706-2.
• Davies, M. (1988), Epicorum Graecorum fragmenta, Göttingen, ISBN 978-3-525-25747-0.
• West, M.L. (2003), Greek Epic Fragments, Loeb Classical Library, no. 497, Cambridge, MA, ISBN 978-0-674-99605-2. (Greek text with facing English translation)

Notes

1. The fragments of Asius have not been augmented by the papyrus finds of the past century-and-a-half, and so the numbering systems of the editions from Kinkel 1877 through West 2003 are identical: the fragment citations given in this article correspond to all the modern editions.
2. Pausanias 7.4.1.
3. Cf. West 1999.
4. West 2003, p. 31.
5. Selzer 2006; West 1985, p. 4.
6. West 1985, p. 32.

References

• Selzer, C. (2006), "Asius", in H. Cancik. & H. Schneider, Brill’s New Pauly, vol. 1, Leiden, ISBN 978-90-04-12259-8.
• West, M.L. (1985), The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women: Its Nature, Structure, and Origins, Oxford, ISBN 0-19-814034-7.
• West, M.L. (1999), "The Invention of Homer", CQ 49: 364–82.

External Sources

• Asius Fragments