PRA´SIAE
PRA´SIAE or
BRA´SIAE (
Πρασιαί, Thuc. Strab. Aristoph.;
Πρασία, Scyl. p. 17;
Ptol. 3.17.10;
Βρασιαί, Paus.: Eth.
Βρασιάτης, Paus.;
Πρασιεύς,
Steph. B. sub voce a town on the eastern coast of Laconia, described by Pausanias as the farthest of the Eleuthero-Laconian places on this part of the coast, and as distant 200 stadia by sea from Cyphanta. (
Paus. 3.24.3.) Scylax (
l.c.) speaks of it as a city and a harbour.
The name of the town was derived by the inhabitants from the noise of the waves (
Βράζειν).
It was burnt by the Athenians in the second year of the Peloponnesian War, B.C. 430. (
Thuc. 2.56; Aristoph.
Pac. 242.) Also in B.C. 414 the Athenians, in conjunction with the Argives, ravaged the coast near Prasiae. (
Thuc. 6.105.)
In the Macedonian period Prasiae, with other Laconian towns on this coast, passed into the hands of the Argives (
Plb. 4.36); whence Strabo calls it one of the Argive towns (viii. p. 368), though in another passage he says that it belonged at an earlier period to the Lacedaemonians (viii. p. 374).
It was restored to Laconia by Augustus, who made it one of the Eleuthero-Laconian towns. (
Paus. 3.21.7,
3.24.3.) Among the curiosities of Prasiae Pausanias mentions a cave where Ino nursed Dionysus; a temple of Asclepius and another of Achilles, and a small promontory upon which stood four brazen figures not more than a foot in height. (
Paus. 3.24. §§ 4, 5.) Leake places Prasiae at
St. Andrew in the Thyreatis; but it more probably stood at
Tyró, which is the site assigned to it by Boblaye, Ross, and Curtius. (Leake,
Morea, vol. ii. p. 484; Boblaye,
Récherches, &c. p. 102; Ross,
Reisen im Peloponnes, p. 165; Curtius,
Peloponnesos, vol. ii. p. 306. [See Vol. I. pp. 727, b., 729, a.]
