AMAZONS, a nation of female warriors, whose existence has been esteemed merely fabulous by Strabo, Arrian, Palephates, and some of the moderns: while others maintain that their existence is sufficiently proved, by the testimony of such of the historians of antiquity as are most worthy of credit; by the monuments which many of them have mentioned; and by medals, some of which are still remaining; and that there is not the least room to believe that what is said of them is fabulous.
The Scythians had a great part of Asia under their dominion upwards of 400 years, till they were conquered by Ninus, the founder of the Assyrian empire. After his death, which happened about 1150 years before the Christian æra, and that of Semiramis and their son Ninias, Ilinus and Scolopites, princes of the royal blood of Scythia, were driven from their country by other princes, who like them aspired to the crown. They departed with their wives, children, and friends; and being followed by a great number of young people of both sexes, they passed into Asiatic Sarmatia, beyond mount Camassus, where they formed an establishment, supplying themselves with the riches they wanted, by making excursions into the countries bordering on the Euxine Sea. The people of those countries, exasperated by the incursions of their new neighbours, united, surprised, and massacred the men.
The women then resolved to revenge their death, and at the same time to provide for their own security, resolved to form a new kind of government, to chuse a queen, enact laws, and maintain themselves, without men, even against the men themselves. This design was not so very surprising as at first sight appears: for the greatest number of the girls among the Scythians had been inured to the same exercises as the boys; to draw the bow, to throw the javelin, to manage other arms; to riding, hunting, and even the painful labours that seem reserved for men; and many of them, as among the Sarmatians, accompanied the men in war. Hence they had no sooner formed their resolution, than they prepared to execute it, and exercised themselves in all military operations. They soon secured the peaceable possession of the country; and not content with shewing their neighbours that all their efforts to drive them thence or to subdue them were ineffectual, they made war upon them, and extended their own frontiers. They had hitherto made use of the instructions and assistance of a few men that remained in the country; but finding at length that they could stand their ground, and aggrandize themselves, without them, they killed all those whom sight or chance had saved from the fury of the Sarmatians; and for ever renounced marriage, which they now considered as an insupportable slavery. But as they could only secure the duration of their new kingdom by propagation, they made a law to go every year to the frontiers, to invite the men to come to them; to deliver themselves up to their embraces, without choice on their part, or the least attachment; and to leave them as soon as they were pregnant. All those whom age rendered fit for propagation, and were
Amazons. willing to serve the state by breeding girls, did not go at the same time in search of men: for in order to obtain a right to promote the multiplication of the species, they must first have contributed to its destruction; nor was any thought worthy of giving birth to children, till she had killed three men.
If from this commerce they brought forth girls, they educated them; but with respect to the boys, if we may believe Justin, they strangled them at the moment of their birth: according to Diodorus Siculus, they twisted their legs and arms, so as to render them unfit for military exercises; but Quintus Curtius, Philostrates, and Jordanus, say, that the less savage sent them to their fathers. It is probable, that at first, when their fury against the men was carried to the greatest height, they killed the boys: that when this fury abated, and most of the mothers were filled with horror at depriving the little creatures of the lives they had just received from them, they fulfilled the first duties of a mother; but, to prevent their causing a revolution in the state, maimed them in such a manner as to render them incapable of war, and employed them in the mean offices which these warlike women thought beneath them: in short, that, when their conquests had confirmed their power, their ferocity subsiding, they entered into political engagements with their neighbours; and the number of the males they had preserved becoming burthensome, they, at the desire of those who rendered them pregnant, sent them the boys, and continued still to keep the girls.
As soon as the age of the girls permitted, they took away the right breast, that they might draw the bow with the greater force. The common opinion is, that they burnt that breast, by applying to it, at eight years of age, hot iron, which insensibly dried up the fibres and glands: some think that they did not make use of so much ceremony, but that when the part was formed they got rid of it by amputation: some, again, with much greater probability, assert, that they employed no violent measures; but, by a continual compression of that part from infancy, prevented its growth, at least so far as to hinder its ever being incommodious in war.
The Amazons were commonly clothed in the skins of the beasts they killed in hunting; which were tied on the left shoulder, and, leaving the right side uncovered, fell down to their knees. In war, the queens and other chiefs carried a corselet, or slight armour for the body, formed of small pieces of iron, in the manner of leaves or scales, fastened by a girdle, below which the coat of arms hung to the knee. The head was armed with a helmet and plume of feathers. The rest of their arms were a bow and arrows, lances, javelins, a battle-axe (said to be invented by Penthesilea one of their queens), and buckler nearly in the form of a crescent, about a foot and a half in diameter, with the points upward. Thalestris appeared before Alexander with two lances in her hand, though she only came to make him a gallant request. Those who accompanied her bore battle-axes with two edges, the handles of which were as long as the wood of a javelin.
They are said to have made great conquests, and to have obtained very extensive dominions, particularly Crimea and Circassia; and to have rendered Iberias, Colchis, and Albania, tributary to them. They enjoyed their power for several centuries; but an expedition in-
to Greece, and into the island of Achilles, is said to have ruined their empire.
The Amazons of Africa were female warriors, who were obliged to continue virgins to a certain period of their military service. When that period was elapsed, they married, merely with the view of propagating the species. All the offices of state were filled by them. The men were employed in domestic affairs, and passed their whole life in the house, as women did in other countries: for these imperious females usurped from them every function that might awake their valour. As soon as the Amazons were delivered, they committed their children to the care of the men, who nourished them with milk, and other food proper for infancy. If the child was a female, they burned its breasts to prevent their growth, which would have been inconvenient in battle. Historians inform us, that they inhabited an island which was called Hesperia, because it lay to the west of the lake Tritonis.