ASCLEPIADES, Greek physician, was born at Prusa in Bithynia in 124 B.C., and flourished at Rome in the end of the 2nd century B.C. He travelled much when young, and seems at first to have settled at Rome as a rhetorician. In that profession he did not succeed, but he acquired great reputation as a physician. He founded his medical practice on a modification of the atomic or corpuscular theory, according to which disease results from an irregular or inharmonious motion of the corpuscles of the body. His remedies were, therefore, directed to the restoration of harmony, and he trusted much to changes of diet, accompanied by friction, bathing and exercise, though he also employed emetics and bleeding. He recommended the use of wine, and in every way strove to render himself as agreeable as possible to his patients. His pupils were very numerous, and the school formed by them was called the Methodical. Asclepiades died at an advanced age.
ASCLEPIADES, of Samos, epigrammatist and lyric poet, friend of Theocritus, flourished about 270 B.C. He was the earliest and most important of the convivial and erotic epigrammatists. Only a few of his compositions are actual “inscriptions”; others sing the praises of the poets whom he specially admired, but the majority of them are love-songs. It is doubtful whether he is the author of all the epigrams (some 40 in number) which bear his name in the Greek Anthology. He possibly gave his name to the Asclepiadean metre.
ASCLEPIODOTUS, Greek military writer, flourished in the 1st century B.C. Nothing is known of him except that he was a pupil of Poseidonius the Stoic (d. 51 B.C.). He is the supposed author of a treatise on Graeco-Macedonian tactics (Τακτικὰ Κεφάλαια), which, however, is probably not his own work, but the skeleton outline of the lectures delivered by his master, who is known to have written a work on the subject.
ASCOLI, GRAZIADIO ISAIA (1820-1907), Italian philologist; of Jewish family, was born at Görz at an early age showed a marked linguistic talent. In 1854 he published his Studii orientali e linguistici, and in 1860 was appointed professor of philology at Milan. He made various learned contributions to the study of Indo-European and Semitic languages, and also of the gipsy language, but his special field was the Italian dialects. He founded the Archivio glottologico italiano in 1873, publishing in it his Saggi Ladini, and making it in succeeding years the great organ of original scholarship on this subject. He was universally recognized as the greatest authority on Italian linguistics, and his article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (9th ed., revised for this edition) became the classic exposition in English. (See [Italy]: Language.)
ASCOLI PICENO[1] (anc. Ausculum) a town and episcopal see of the Marches, Italy, the capital of the province of Ascoli Piceno, 17 m. W. of Porto d’ Ascoli (a station on the coast railway, 56 m. S.S.E. of Ancona), and 53 m. S. of Ancona direct, situated on the S. bank of the Tronto (anc. Truentus) at its confluence with the Castellano, 500 ft. above sea-level, and surrounded by lofty mountains. Pop. (1901) town, 12,256; commune, 28,608. The Porta Romana is a double-arched Roman gate; adjacent are remains of the massive ancient city walls, in rectangular blocks of stone 2 ft. in height, and remains of still earlier fortifications have been found at this point (F. Barnabei in Notizie degli scavi, 1887, 252). The church of S. Gregorio is built into a Roman tetrastyle Corinthian temple, two columns of which and the cella are still preserved; the site of the Roman theatre can be distinguished; and the church and convent of the Annunziata (with two fine cloisters and a good fresco by Cola d’ Amatrice in the refectory) are erected upon large Roman substructures of concrete, which must have supported some considerable building. Higher up is the castle, which now shows no traces of fortifications older than medieval; it commands a fine view of the town and of the mountains which encircle it. The town has many good pre-Renaissance buildings; the picturesque colonnaded market-place contains the fine Gothic church of S. Francesco and the original Palazzo del Comune, now the prefecture (Gothic with Renaissance additions). The cathedral is in origin Romanesque,[2] but has been much altered, and was stored in 1888 by Count Giuseppe Sacconi (1855-1905). The frescoes in the dome, of the same date, are by Cesare Mariani. The cope presented to the cathedral treasury by Pope Nicholas IV. was stolen in 1904, and sold to Mr J. Pierpont Morgan, who generously returned it to the Italian government, and it was then placed for greater safety in the Galleria Corsini at Rome. The baptistery still preserves its ancient character; and the churches of S. Vittore and SS. Vincenzo ed Anastasio are also good Romanesque buildings. The fortress of the Malatesta, constructed in 1349, has been in the main destroyed; the part of it which remains is now a prison. The present Palazzo Comunale, a Renaissance edifice, contains a fine museum, chiefly remarkable for the contents of prehistoric tombs found in the district (including good bronze fibulae, necklaces, amulets, &c., often decorated with amber), and a large collection of acorn-shaped lead missiles (glandes) used by slingers, belonging to the time of the siege of Asculum during the Social War (89 B.C.). There is also a picture gallery containing works by local masters, Pietro Alamanni, Cola d’ Amatrice, Carlo Crivelli, &c. The bridges across the ravines which defend the town are of considerable importance; the Ponte di Porta Cappucina is a very fine Roman bridge, with a single arch of 71 ft. span. The Ponte di Cecco (so named from Cecco d’ Ascoli), with two arches, is also Roman and belongs to the Via Salaria; the Ponte Maggiore and the Ponte Cartaro are, on the other hand, medieval, though the latter perhaps preserves some traces of Roman work. Near Ascoli is Castel Trosino, where an extensive Lombard necropolis of the 7th century was discovered in 1895; the contents of the tombs are now exhibited in the Museo Nazionale delle Terme at Rome (Notizie degli scavi, 1895, 35).