Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/406

38B ASTACUS. safety to ports and to navigation in general. (Strab. i. p. 57 ; Pans. vii. 21. § 3 ; Plut. Thes. 36 ; Suid. s. V.) [L. S.] ASPLE'DON ('Ao-ttXtjSc^i/), a son of Poseidon and the nymph Mideia (Chersias, ap. Pans. ix. 38. § 6); according to others, he was a son of Orcho- menus and brother of Cl}Tnenus and Amphidicus (Steph. Bj'z. s. V. 'A<nrriduv), or a son of Presbon and Sterope. (Eustath. ad Horn. p. 272.) He was regarded as the founder of Aspledon, an an- cient town of the Minyans in Boeotia. [L. S.] ASPRITNAS, a surname of the Nonii, a con- sular family under the early emperors. (Comp. Plin.^. N. XXX. 20.) 1. C. Nonius Asprenas, was a performer in the Trojae lusf/s under Augus- tus, and in consequence of an injury which he sus- tained from a fall in the game, he received a golden chain from Augustus, and was allowed to assume the surname of Torquatus, both for himself and his posterity. (Suet. Oct. 43.) 2. L. Asprenas, a legate under his maternal uncle. Varus, a. d. 10, preserved the Roman anny from total destruction after the death of Varus. (Dion Cass. Ivi. 22; Veil. Pat. ii. 120.) He is probably the same as the L. Nonius Asprenas who was consul A. D. 6, and as the L. Asprenas men- tioned by Tacitus, who was proconsul of Africa at the death of Augustus, A. D. 14, and who, accord- ing to some accounts, sent soldiers, at the command of Tiberius, to kill Sempronius Gracchus. (Tac. Aftn. i. 53.) He is mentioned again by Tacitua, under a. d. 20. (Ann. iii. 1}].) 3. P. Nonius Asprenas, consul, a. d. 38. (Dion Cass. lix. 9; Frontinus, de A(piaeduct. c, 13.) 4. I<. Nonius Asprenas and P. Nonius As- prenas are two orators frequently introduced as speakers in the Controversiae (1-4, 8, 10, 11, &c.) of M. Seneca. ASPRE'NAS, CALPU'RNIUS, appointed go- vernor of Galatia and Pamphylia by Galba, a. d. 70, induced the partisans of the counterfeit Nero to put him to death. (Tac. HisL ii. 9.) ASSAON. [Niobe.] ASSALECTUS, a Roman sculptor, whose name is found upon an extant statue of Aesculapius by him, of the merit of which Winckelmann (Gesch. d. K. viii. 4. § 5) speaks slightingly. [C. P. M.] ASSA'RACUS (^PLcradpaKos)., a son of Tros and Calirrhoe, the daughter of Scamander. He was king of Troy, and husband of Hieromneme, by whom he became the father of Capys, the father of Anchises. (Hom. //. xx. *232, &c. ; ApoUod. iii. 12. § 2 ; Serv. ad Virg. Georg. iii. 35 ; Am. viii. 130.)^ ^ [L. S.] ASSE'SIA ('Ao-oTjoria), a surname of Athena, derived from the town of Assesus in Ionia, where she had a temple. (Herod, i. 19.) [L. S.] ASSTEAS or ASTEAS, a painter, whose name is found upon a vase of his workmanship, dis- covered at Paestum, and now preserved in the Royal Museum at Naples. (Winckelmann, Gesch. d. K. iii. Anm. 778.) [C. P. M.] A'STACUS {"KaraKos). 1. A son of Poseidon and the nymph Olbia, from whom the town of As- tacus in Bithynia, which was afterwards called Nicomedeia, derived its name. (Arrian. ap. Steph. Byz. s. v.; Paus. v. 12. § 5 ; Strab. xii. p. 5G3.) 2. The father of Ismarus, Leadcs, Asphodicus, and Melanippus, whence Ovid calls the last of these heroes Astacides. (Apollod. iii. 6. § 8 ; Ovid, /6eV, 515.) [L. S.] ASTER! US. ASTARTE. [Aphrodite and Syria Dea.] ASTE'RI A ("Ao-repia), a daughter of the TiUin Coeus (according to Hj-gin. Fab. Pre/, of Polus) and Phoebe. She was the sister of Leto, and, ac- cording to Hesiod (T/ieog. 409), the wife of Perses, by whom she became the mother of Hecate. Ci- cero [de N^at, Deor. iii. 16) makes her the mother of the fourth Heracles by Zeus. But according to the genuine and more general tradition, she was an inhabitant of Olympus, and beloved by Zeus. In order to escape from his embraces, she got me- tamorphosed into a quail («pri;|), threw herself into the sea, and was here metamorphosed into the island Asteria (the island which had fallen from heaven like a star), or Ortvgia, afterwards called Delos. (Apollod. i. 2. § 2,* 4. § 1 ; Athen. ix. p. 392 ; Hygin. Fab. 53 ; Callimach. Hymiu in DeL 37; Serv. ad Aen. iii. 73.) There are several other mythical personages of this name, — one a daughter of Alcyoneus [Alcvonides] ; a second, one of the Danaids (Apollod. ii. 1. § 5); a third, a daughter of Atlas (Hygin. Fab. 250, where, perhaps, Asterope is to be read) ; and a fourth, a daughter of Hydis, who became by Bellerophontes the mother of Hy- dissus, the founder of Hydissus in Caria. (Steph. Byz. s. V. 'rZicrcros.) [L. S.] ASTE'RION or ASTE'RIUS ('Ao-repiW or 'AoTe/Jios). 1. A son of Teutamus, and king of the Cretans, who married Europa after she had been carried to Crete by Zeus. He also brought up the three sons, Minos, Sarpedon, and Rhada- manthys whom she had by the father of the gods. (Apollod. iii. 1. § 2, &c.; Died. iv. 60.) 2. A son of Cometes, Pyremus, or Priscus, by Antigone, the daughter of Pheres. He is men- tioned as one of the Argonauts. (Apollon. Rhod. i. 35 ; Paus. v. 17. § 4; Hygin. Fab. 14 ; Valer. FliKx:. i. 355.) There are two more mythical per- sonages of this name, one a river-god [Acraea], and the second a son of Minos, who was slain by Theseus. (Paus. ii. 31. § 1.) [L. S.] ASTERION ('Ao-Tf/Jtwi/), a statuary-, the son of a man named Aeschylus. Pausanias (vi. 3. § 1) mentions a statue of Chaereas, a Sicyonian pugilist, which was of his workmanship. [C. P. M.] ASTE'RI US ('Ao-T€ptos), a son of Anax and grandson of Ge. According to a Milesian legend, he was buried in the small island of Lade, and his body measured ten cubits in length. (Paus. i. 35. § 5, vii. 2. § 3.) There are four other my- thical personages of this name, who are mentioned in the following passages : Apollod. iii. 1. § 4 ; Apollon. Rhod. i. 176 ; Apollod. i. 9. § 9 ; Hygin. i^ai. 170. ^ [L. S.] ASTE'RIUS ('AcTTep'os), succeeded Eulalius as bishop of Amaseia in Pontus, in the latter part of the fourth century. He had been educated in his youth by a Scythian slave. Several of his homilies are still extant, and extracts from others, which have perished, have been preserved b}' Photius. {Cod. 271.) He belonged to the orthodox party . in the Arian controversy, and seems to have lived B to a great age. | Fabricius {Dihl. Grace, ix. p. 519, &c.) gives a list of 25 other persons of this name, many of whom were dignitaries of the church, and lived about the end of the fourth or the beginning of the fifth century. Among them we may notice As- terius, a Cappadocian, who embraced Christianity, but apostatized in the persecution under Diocletian and Maximian (about a. d. 304). He subse-