=Ascolia=, a festival in honour of Bacchus, celebrated about December by the Athenian husbandmen, who generally sacrificed a goat to the god, because that animal is a great enemy to the vine. They made a bottle with the skin of the victim, which they filled with oil and wine, and afterwards leaped upon it. He who could stand upon it first was victorious, and received the bottle as a reward. This was called ἀσκωλιαζειν παρα το ἐπι ἀσκον ἀλλεσθαι, _leaping upon the bottle_, whence the name of the festival is derived. It was also introduced in Italy, where the people besmeared their faces with the dregs of wine, and sang hymns to the god. They always hanged some small images of the god on the tallest trees in their vineyards, and these images they called Oscilla. _Virgil_, _Georgics_, bk. 2, li. 384.――_Pollux_, bk. 9, ch. 7. =Asconius Labeo=, a preceptor of Nero.――――Pedia, a man intimate with Virgil and Livy.――――Another of the same family in the age of Vespasian, who became blind in his old age, and lived 12 years after. He wrote, besides some historical treatises, annotations on Cicero’s orations. =Ascra=, a town of Bœotia, built, according to some, by the giants Otus and Ephialtes, at the foot of Mount Helicon. Hesiod was born there, whence he is often called the _Ascrean_ poet, and whatever poem treats on agricultural subjects _Ascræum carmen_. The town received its name from Ascra, a nymph, mother of Œoclus by Neptune. _Strabo_, bk. 9.――_Pausanias_, bk. 9, ch. 29.――_Paterculus_, bk. 1. =Ascŭlum=, now _Ascoli_, a town of Picenum, famous for the defeat of Pyrrhus by Curius and Fabricius. _Florus_, bk. 3, ch. 18.――――Another in Apulia, near the Aufidus.