TheAsii,Osii,Ossii,Asoi,Asioi,Asini orAseni were an ancientIndo-European people ofCentral Asia, during the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE. Known only from Classical Greek and Roman sources, they were one of the peoples held to be responsible for the downfall of theGreco-Bactrian Kingdom.[1] In Greek Mythology they were the children ofIapetus andAsia.
Modern scholars have attempted to identify the Asii with other peoples known from European and Chinese sources including the:Yuezhi,Tocharians,Issedones/Wusun and/orAlans.
The classical European sources relating to the Asii are brief. They sometimes survive only as quotations in other ancient sources, with textual variations that have led to widely varying translations and interpretations.[citation needed]
During the 4th and 3rd Centuries BCE,Megasthenes, who lived inArachosia and was an ambassador to theMauryan court inPataliputra, refers in his workIndika to three tribes with similar and possibly related names, in separate parts of South Asia:
These references by Megasthenes have survived only as citations in other texts.
In the 1st century BCE,Trogus names – in theHistoriae Philppicae (of which only the "Prologues" have survived intact) – three tribes involved in the conquest of Bactria: the Asiani, Sacaraucae and Tochari (i.e. theTukhara of Bactria rather than the so-calledTocharians of the Tarim Basin). The Tochari are reported to have, at some point, become subject to the ruling elite of the Asiani.[citation needed]
According to Trogus, the Sacaraucae had since been destroyed. (In about 200 CE, the Roman historian,Justin (Marcus Junianus Justinus), wrote anepitome or condensation of Trogus's history. The last datable event recorded by Justin is the recovery of the Roman standards captured by the Parthians in 20 BCE, although Trogus' original history may have dealt with events into the first decade of the 1st-century CE.[citation needed])
Strabo completed hisGeography in 23 CE. He mentions four tribes: the Asioi, Pasianoi, Sakaraulai, and Tokharoi.[3]
Pliny the Elder, in about 77–79 CE, makes a brief mention of a people called theAsini in hisNaturalis Historia. According to P. H. L. Eggermont:
Pliny mentions ... the Asini, who are reigning in the city of Bucephela. From these three data, 1) the Tacoraei are neighbours of theBesadae/Sosaeadae; 2) the Asini are the neighbours of the Sosaeadae [possibly theKirata]; [and] 3) The Asiani [sic] are kings of the Thocari, [sic] it follows that the Asini of Pliny's text are identical with the Asiani, who are the kings of the Tocharians. This implies that—at least in the time of Pliny—theKushāṇas were kings of the region betweenJhelam and Indus and that Bucephala was one of their cities. It seems that Pliny availed himself of a recent description of this territory and that Ptolemy knew these data too.[4]
Many theories have been proposed by historians and other scholars as to their origins, relationships, language, culture, etc., but so far no consensus has emerged.
It is generally accepted that the Asiani mentioned by Trogus were probably identical to the Asii of Strabo.[5]
There is no agreement over whether another tribe mentioned by Strabo, the "Pasiani" were likewise related. Scholars such as W. W. Tarn, Moti Chandra believe that "as Asiani is the (Iranian) adjectival form of Asii, so Pasiani would be the similar adjectival form of, and would imply, a name such as*Pasii or*Pasi".[6][7][8] This may suggest that Strabo was referring to a group ofPersians (Old PersianPārsa) orParsis who had settled in Central Asia. However, scholars such as J. Marquart believe that they were synonymous with the Asiani.[9] In other words, the Asii and the Pasiani were one and the same, and "Pasiani" was a misspelling of Asiani or a variant of the same name. Others suggest that the name is a misspelling ofGasiani,[10][11][12] a name which is believed by Chinese scholars to be connected to theKushan Empire (endonym:Kushano; Chinese:Guishuang 貴霜).
Other scholars have proposed, more controversially, that the Asii,Yuezhi and/orTocharians were closely related.
Alfred von Gutschmid believed that Asii, Pasiani and other names mentioned by Strabo are an attempt to renderYuezhi in Greek.[13] W. W. Tarn first thought that the Asii were probably one part of the Yuezhi, the other being the Tocharians. However, he later expressed doubts as to this position.[14][15]
The Asii were identical with the Pasiani (Gasiani) and were, therefore, also the Yuezhi.
— J. Markwart. Ērānšahr[16]
The Asii were probably one of three Scythian tribes, whereas the Tochari were probably not, and should be identified with the Yuezhi.
— A. K. NarainThe Indo-Greeks[17]
One of the most important sources of information on nomad migration in Central Asia is Justin'sPrologue to Pompeius Trogus (prologue to book XLII), which states that 'the Asiani are kings of the Tochari and destroyed the Sacaraucae' (Reges Tocharorum Asiani interiusque Sakaraucarum). It is possible to conclude from this extract that the Asiani and the Tochari were closely related tribes. What is more, it indicates that the 'Asiani' dominated the 'Tochari' (Reges Tocharorum Asiani). We can identify the Asiani with the Kushans (von Gutschmidt 1888; Haloun 1937; Bachhofer 1941; Daffina 1967), one of the leading tribes, which subsequently came to power and created a great empire. It is noteworthy that Justin says that the Tochari were ruled by the Asiani, while the Chinese sources identify them as the largest of the five Yuezhi principalities.
— Kazim Abdullaev, 2007,Nomad Migrations in Central Asia.[18]
By the middle of the 1st Millennium CE, speakers of the so-calledTocharian A language in the Tarim Basin, apparently referred to themselves asĀrśi (pronounced "arshi"; apparently meaning "shining" or "brilliant").
Asii or Asiani may simply be acorruption of the name of theIssedones – an Iranian people mentioned by Herodotus – who are frequently identified with theWusun mentioned in contemporaneous Chinese sources.
Taishan Yu proposes that Asii were "probably" the dominant tribe of a confederacy of four Issedonean tribes "from the time that they had settled in the valleys of theIli andChu" who later invaded Sogdiana and Bactria. "This would account for their being called collectively "Issedones" by Herodotus." He also states that the "Issedon Scythia and the Issedon Serica took their names from the Issedones."[19] Yu believes that the Issedones must have migrated to the Ili and Chu valleys, "at the latest towards the end of the 7th century B.C."[20][21]
It has been suggested that theWusun may also be identified in Western sources as their name, pronounced then *o-sən or *uo-suən, is not far removed from that of a people known as the Asiani who the writer Pompeius Trogus (1st century BC) informs us were a Scythian tribe.
— J. P. Mallory and Victor H.MairThe Tarim Mummies[22]
A rival theory instead identifies the Asii/Asiani/Asioi with theAlans, an Iranian tribe who migrated from theEurasian Steppe into Europe during the early Middle Ages.
There is circumstantial evidence for such a link in:
The Alans were first documented by European scholars during the 1st century CE, on thePontic-Caspian Steppe.
Onomastic evidence for the identification of the Asii and Alans is provided by later medieval European scholars and travellers. In the 13th century,Giovanni da Pian del Carpine (Johannes de Plano Carpini) referred toAlani sive Assi ("Alans or Assi") andWilliam of Rubrouck used the nameAlani sive Aas ("Alans or Aas"). In the 15th century, Josephus Barbarus reported that the Alans referred to themselves by the nameAs.[25] The name of theOssetians, who are descended from the Alans, also has its root in the alternate ethnonymOsi.
However, names similar to Alan (e.g.Aryan andIron) were clearly used by distantly-related Iranian tribes in very different historical contexts and the identification of the Alans with the Asii requires them to have migrated more than 2,800 kilometres (1,750 miles) in the space of several decades. According to archaeologistClaude Rapin, it is unlikely that the Asii of Bactria migrated further west thanKangju/Sogdia.[23][26]