Asido
ASI´DO(prob. Xeres de la Frontera), an inland city of Hispania Baetica, belonging to the conventus of Hispalis. It was a colony, with the epithet Caesariana, and appears to be the Ἄσινδονof Ptolemy (Ptol. 2.4.13.) Numerous coins, and other Roman antiquities, have been found at Xerez, its supposed site. Some, however, take Xerezfor the ancient ASTAand Medina Sidoniafor Asido. (Plin. Nat. 3.1. s. 3; Florez, Esp. S. 10.15, Med. de Esp. 1. p. 164, 3. p. 13; Ukert, 2.1. pp. 356, 357.)
[P.S]A Roman colony near the S coast of Baetica and belonging to the juridical area of Hispalis (Seville) (Plin. 3.11). It is SE of Cádiz. The name appears to be of Punic origin, as shown by its bilingual coins. The mint employed the Libyo-Phoenician alphabet, and the leading motifs were the bull, the dolphin, and the full-front head of Hercules. Later it coined asses and semisses bearing ears of grain and fish. Variants of the name appear in Ptolemy (2.4.10) and in the Ravenna Cosmographer (317.9).
Remains include portraits, busts, togate figures, statues of divinities, sarcophagi, inscriptions, columns, cameos, rings, and coins. Among these finds are the epigram, now in the archaeological museum of Seville, dedicated to the quattuorvir Quintus Fabius Senica by the Municipes Caesarini (perhaps a relative of the Fabia Prisca of Asido, who occurs in a Cordova inscription), and the portraits of Livia and Tiberius now in the archaeological museum of Cádiz. The Roman town must lie under the modern one, as remains of buildings have been recorded in the area of the present convents of S. Francisco and S. Cristobal, and the Calle Althaona Vieja. No Phoenician or Punic remains have been found, but there has been no deep excavation.
BIBLIOGRAPHYE. Romero de Torres, Catálogo Monumental de España: Provincia de Cádiz (1934) 174, 210; A. García y Bellido, “Las colonias romanas de Hispania,” Anuario de Historia del Derecho español 29 (1959) 476ff; Mélanges André Piganiol (1966) III, 481ff.
C. FERNANDEZ-CHICARRO