[2] In the Works and Days, Hesiod says that his father was driven from Aeolian Cyme to Ascra by poverty, only to find himself situated in a most unpleasant town (lines 639–40): He settled in a miserable village near Helicon,Ascra, vile in winter, painful in summer, never good.

The 4th century BCE astronomer and general Eudoxus thought even less of Ascra's climate.

[3] However, other writers speak of Ascra as abounding in corn,[4] Corinthian hunchbacks, and wine.

[5] By the time Eudoxus wrote, the town had been all but destroyed (by Thespiae sometime between 700 and 650 BCE), a loss commemorated by a similarly lost Hellenistic poem, which opened: "Of Ascra there isn't even a trace anymore" (Ἄσκρης μὲν οὐκέτ' ἐστὶν οὐδ' ἴχνος).

[6] This apparently was a hyperbole, for in the 2nd century CE, Pausanias could report that a single tower, though not much else, still stood at the site.