Asii

The Asii, Osii, Ossii, Asoi, Asioi, Asini or Aseni were an ancient Indo-European people of Central 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 the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom.

Modern scholars have attempted to identify the Asii with other peoples known from European and Chinese sources including the: Yuezhi, , Issedones/Wusun and/or Alans.

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..

During the 4th and 3rd Centuries BCE, Megasthenes, who lived in Arachosia and was an ambassador to the Mauryan court in Pataliputra, refers in his work Indika 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 the Historiae Philppicae (of which only the "Prologues" have survived intact) – three tribes involved in the conquest of Bactria: the Asiani, Sacaraucae and Tochari (i.e. the Tukhara of Bactria rather than the so-called of the Tarim Basin). The Tochari are reported to have, at some point, become subject to the ruling elite of the Asiani. According to Trogus, the Sacaraucae had since been destroyed. (In about 200 CE, the Roman historian, Justin (Marcus Junianus Justinus), wrote an epitome 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.)

Strabo completed his Geography in 23 CE. He mentions four tribes: the Asioi, Pasianoi, Sakaraulai, and Tokharoi.

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