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NATASHA BERSHADSKY

Center for Hellenic Studies

Spartan perioecic settlement, on the western coast of the Messenian Gulf (BA 58 B4; modern Koroni), inhabited by DRYOPES (Paus. 4.34.9–12). When Herodotus lists the Greeks who came to the ISTHMUS of CORINTH to defend the PELOPONNESE against the Persians in 480 BCE (8.72), he does not mention Asine, despite the fact that he refers to it immediately afterwards as one of the Dryopian CITIES in the list of the ethnic groups inhabiting the Peloponnese (8.73.2). Herodotus claims that all of the Peloponnesian poleis that he has not enumerated as resisting the Persians remained neutral, which for him amounts to medizing (8.73.3). Since Asine was a perioecic Spartan city, it is not clear whether it was implicitly included in the list of the defenders as a part of the Lacedaemonians, or actually remained neutral.

Pausanias narrates that the Dryopes of Asine had lived in the Argolid, but the Argives destroyed their town and the population was given refuge by the Spartans (Paus. 2.36.4–5, 4.8.3; cf. Strabo 8.6.11/C373). The archaeological record of Argolic Asine is consistent with this narrative, showing a distinctive material culture and a violent destruction c. 720–710 BCE. According to Pausanias, the Asineans of Messenia were the only Dryopes enthusiastically embracing their ethnic identity (Paus. 4.34.11), which was perhaps advantageous in distinguishing themselves from the MESSENIANS (Luraghi 2008, 40–43). The Asineans of Messenia asserted that their progenitor Dryops (whom they honored with cult) was a son of APOLLO, and that they were invited to live in the Argolid by king EURYSTHEUS, when HERACLES expelled the Dryopes from their ancient homeland in central Greece (Paus. 4.34.10–11; the prevalent variant of the MYTH claimed that Heracles forcibly settled the Dryopes in the Argolic Asine).

SEE ALSO: Argos; Cardamyle; Ethnicity; Medize; perioeci; Sparta