ASKABAD

askabad, or askhabad, a town of russian central asia, capital of the transcaspian province, 345 m. by rail s.e. of krasnovodsk and 594 from samarkand, situated in a small oasis at the n. foot of the kopet-dagh range. it has a public library and a technical railway school; also cotton-cleaning works, tanneries, brick-works, and a mineral-water factory. the trade is valued at l250,000 a year. the population, 2500 in 1881, when the russians seized it, was 19,428 in 1897, one-third persians, many of them belonging to the babi sect. askaules (gr. [greek: askaulaes] [?] from [greek: askos], bag, [greek: aulos], pipe), probably the greek word for bag-piper, although there is no documentary authority for its use. neither it nor [greek: askaulos] (which would naturally mean the bag-pipe) has been found in greek classical authors, though j.j. reiske--in a note on dio chrysostom, _orat._ lxxi. _ad fin._, where an unmistakable description of the bag-pipe occurs ("and they say that he is skilled to write, to work as an artist, and to play the pipe with his mouth, on the bag placed under his arm-pits")--says that [greek: askaulaes] was the greek word for bag-piper. the only actual corroboration of this is the use of _ascaules_ for the pure latin _utricularius_ in martial x. 3. 8. dio chrysostom flourished about a.d. 100; it is therefore only an assumption that the bag-pipe was known to the classical greeks by the name of [greek: askaulos]. it need not, however, be a matter of surprise that among the highly cultured greeks such an instrument as the bag-pipe should exist without finding a place in literature. it is significant that it is not mentioned by pollux (_onomast._ iv. 74) and athenaeus (_deipnos._ iv. 76) in their lists of the various kinds of pipes. see articles aulos and bag-pipe; art. "askaules" in pauly-wissowa, _realencyclopadie_.