Asa Gray is considered the most important American botanist of the 19th century. His Darwiniana was considered an important explanation of how religion and science were not necessarily mutually exclusive. Gray was adamant that a genetic connection must exist between all members of a species. He was also strongly opposed to the ideas of hybridization within one generation and special creation in the sense of its not allowing for evolution. He was a strong supporter of Darwin, although Gray's theistic evolution was guided by a Creator.
Asaf Mikhailovich Messerer was a highly influential Soviet ballet dancer and ballet teacher. He was born in Vilnius, Lithuania. In 1919 he studied privately with Mikhail Mordkin, until Alexander Gorsky placed him in a class at the Bolshoi Ballet School, from which he graduated in 1921. He then joined the Bolshoi Theatre, where he became one of its most important principal soloists, a position he retired from in 1954.
Asai Ryōi was a Japanese writer in the early Edo period. A Shin Buddhist priest who was at one time head of a Kyoto temple, he is held to be one of the finest writers of Kanazōshi. Kanazōshi was a form of popular literature that was written with little or no kanji, thus accessible to many. Though it spanned many genres, a common theme in Kanazōshi works was the celebration of contemporary urban life. Asai Ryōi's work in particular turned traditional Buddhist teaching on its head in an expression of urban ideals.
Asclepiades of Phlius was a Greek philosopher in the Eretrian school of philosophy. He was the friend of Menedemus of Eretria, and they both went to live in Megara and studied under Stilpo, before sailing to Elis to join Phaedo's school. His friendship with Menedemus was said to have been hardly inferior to the friendship of Pylades and Orestes. As impoverished young men living in Athens, they were one day summoned before the Areopagus, to explain how they could spend all day with the philosophers if they had no visible means of support. They summoned a miller to the court to explain that they threshed grain at night for 2 drachmas, whereupon the Areopagites were so astonished that they awarded the two men 200 drachmas as a reward.
Asclepiades of Samos (Sicelidas) was an ancient Greek epigrammatist and lyric poet who flourished around 270 BC. He was a friend of Hedylus and possibly of Theocritus. He may have been honoured by the city of Histiaea in about 263 BC.
Asclepiodotus of Alexandria was a Neoplatonic philosopher who lived in the second half of the 5th century. He studied under Proclus in Athens, but eventually moved to Aphrodisias, where he maintained a philosophy school jointly with another man also called Asclepiodotus, whose daughter, Damiane, he married. Asclepiodotus also taught Damascius, who describes him in disparaging terms, in part because of his disregard for oracular lore:Asclepiodotus' mind was not perfect, as most people thought. He was extremely sharp at raising questions, but not so acute in his understanding. His was an uneven intelligence, especially when it came to divine matters - the invisible and intelligible concept of Plato's lofty thought. Even more wanting was he in the field of higher wisdom - the Orphic and Chaldean lore which transcends common sense.
Asclepius of Tralles was a student of Ammonius Hermiae. Two works of his survive:Commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics, books I-VII.
Commentary on Nicomachus' Introduction to Arithmetic (Leonardo Tarán, Asclepius of Tralles, Commentary to Nicomachus' Introduction to Arithmetic, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 59: 4. Philadelphia, 1969.
