Asios Hyrtakides
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- For others named Asius, see Asius.
Both these characters named 'Asius' are associated with the Trojan War, and both are minor characters in Homer's Iliad. The first was a son of Hyrtacus and Arisbe, the first wife of King Priam and daughter of Merops, the seer of Percote. This Asius led the contingent from a cluster of towns on both sides of the Hellespont, including Arisbe, Percote, Abydus and Sestus. This last town was the only one to lie on the European (northern) side of the Hellespont; the rest were situated on the Asian (southern) side. Asius himself resided in the town of Arisbe, by the river Selleis, and this may have been the capital of this little Hellespontine domain. Asius had a brother named Nisus, and two sons named Adamas and Phaenops. All four men (Asius, Nisus, Adamas, Phaenops) fought at Troy, as allies of King Priam. Adamas was killed by Meriones before Troy, and Phaenops (who came from Abydus), was a close friend to Hector - Apollo once adopted the form of Phaenops to address Hector. Asius, son of Hyrtacus, was killed by the Cretan king Idomeneus.
The name Asius might be associated with 'Asia', given that both the above mythological personages hail from Asia Minor (which the ancient Greeks knew as 'Asia'). However, there was an ancient town in Crete named Asos (or Oasos). Although neither Asius appears to be Cretan (one is from Arisbe by the Hellespont, the other from Phrygia), Greek mythological sources describe ties between Asia Minor and Crete in the generations before the Trojan War. King Teucer, a mythical ancestor of the Trojans, is said to have been Cretan (although other sources claim he was indigenous to the Troas, and a son of the River God Scamander). Teucer's daughter Arisbe is said to have married King Dardanus, the great-great-great-grandfather of King Priam. (This Arisbe shares the name with the wife of Hyrtacus, who lived five generations later, and may be the eponym for the town of Arisbe). The names 'Hyrtacus' and 'Arisbe' may also be Cretan; and there was a Mount Ida in both Crete and the Troas. Abydus, which formed part of Asius's realm, appears to have been founded (or at least settled) by Milesians; the city of Miletus in Caria, south of Troy, began as a Cretan settlement.
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