AMAZONS, in antiquity, a nation of female warriors, who founded an empire in Asia Minor, upon the river Thermodon, along the coasts of the Black sea. They
Amazon. They are said to have formed a state, out of which men were excluded. What commerce they had with that sex, was only with strangers; they killed all their male children; and they cut off the right breasts of their females, to make them more fit for the combat. From which last circumstance it is that they are supposed to take their name, viz. from the privative α, and μαζός, mamona, "breast." But Dr Bryant, in his Analysis of Ancient Mythology, explodes this account as fabulous; and observes that they were in general Cuthite colonies from Egypt and Syria, who formed settlements in different countries, and that they derived their name from ζων, "the sun," which was the national object of worship, vol. iii. p. 463. It has indeed been controverted, even among ancient writers, whether there ever really was such a nation as that of the Amazons. Strabo, Palsephatus, and others, deny it. On the contrary, Herodotus, Paufanias, Diodorus Siculus, Trogus Pompeius, Justin, Pliny, Mela, Plutarch, &c. expressly assert it.
M. Petit, a French physician, published a Latin dissertation in 1685, to prove that there was really a nation of Amazons. It contains abundance of curious inquiries relating to their habit, their arms, the cities built by them, &c. Others of the moderns also 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 Amazons are mentioned by the most ancient of the Greek writers. In the third book of the Iliad, Homer represents Priam speaking of himself as having been present in the earlier part of his life, in a battle with the Amazons; and some of them afterwards came to the assistance of that prince during the siege of Troy.
The Amazons are particularly mentioned by Herodotus. That historian informs us that the Grecians fought a battle with the Amazons on the river Thermodon, and defeated them. After this victory, they carried off all the Amazons they could take alive in three ships. But whilst they were out at sea, these Amazons conspired against the men, and killed them all. Having, however, no knowledge of navigation, nor any skill in the use of the rudder, sails, or oars, they were driven by wind and tide till they arrived at the precipices of the lake Meotis, in the territories of the Scythians. Here the Amazons went ashore, and, marching into the country, seized and mounted the first horses they met with, and began to plunder the inhabitants. The Scythians at first conceived them to be men; but after they had had skirmishes with them, and taken some prisoners, they discovered them to be women. They were then unwilling to carry on hostilities against them; and by degrees a number of the young Scythians formed connexions with them, and were desirous that these gentle dames should live with them as wives, and be incorporated with the rest of the Scythians. The Amazons agreed to continue their connexion with their Scythian husbands, but refused to associate with the rest of the inhabitants of the country, and especially with the women of it. They
VOL. I. PART II.
afterwards prevailed upon their husbands to retire to Amazon. Sarmatia, where they settled. "Hence," says Herodotus, "the wives of the Sarmatians still continue their ancient way of living. They hunt on horseback in the company of their husbands, and sometimes alone. They march with their armies, and wear the same dress with the men. The Sarmatians use the Scythian language, but corrupted from the beginning, because the Amazons never learned to speak correctly. Their marriages are attended with this circumstance; no virgin is permitted to marry till she has killed an enemy in the field; so that some always grow old before they can qualify themselves as the law requires."
Diodorus Siculus says, "There was formerly a nation who dwelt near the river Thermodon, which was subjected to the government of women, and in which the women, like men, managed all the military affairs. Among these female warriors, it was said, was one who excelled the rest in strength and valour. She assembled together an army of women, whom she trained up in military discipline, and subdued some of the neighbouring nations. Afterwards, having by her valour increased her fame, she led her army against the rest; and being successful, she was so pulled up, that she styled herself the daughter of Mars, and ordered the men to spin wool, and do the work of the women within doors. She also made laws, by which the women were enjoined to go to the wars, and the men to be kept at home in a servile state, and employed in the meanest offices. They also debilitated the arms and thighs of those male children who were born of them, that they might be thereby rendered unfit for war. They feared the right breasts of their girls, that they might be no interruption to them in fighting: whence they derived the name of Amazons. Their queen, having become extremely eminent for skill and knowledge in military affairs, at length built a large city at the mouth of the river Thermodon, and adorned it with a magnificent palace. In her enterprises she adhered strictly to military discipline and good order; and she added to her empire all the adjoining nations, even to the river Tanais. Having performed these exploits, she at last ended her days like a hero, falling in a battle, in which she had fought courageously. She was succeeded in the kingdom by her daughter, who imitated the valour of her mother, and in some exploits excelled her. She caused the girls from their very infancy to be exercised in hunting, and to be daily trained up in military exercises. She instituted solemn festivals and sacrifices to Mars and Diana, which were named Tauropoli. She afterwards carried her arms beyond the river Tanais, and subdued all the people of those regions, even into Thrace. Returning then with a great quantity of spoils into her own kingdom, she caused magnificent temples to be erected to the deities before mentioned; and she gained the love of her subjects by her mild and gentle government. She afterwards undertook an expedition against those who were on the other side of the river, and subjected to her dominion a great part of Asia, extending her arms as far as Syria."
Diodorus also mentions another race of Amazons who dwelt in Africa; and whom he speaks of as being of greater antiquity than those who lived near the river Thermodon. "In the western parts of Libya,"
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Amazon. says he, " upon the borders of those tracts that are habitable, there was anciently a nation under the government of women, and whose manners and mode of living were altogether different from ours. It was the custom of those women to manage all military affairs; and for a certain time, during which they preserved their virginity, they went out as soldiers into the field. After some years employed in this manner, when the time appointed for this purpose expired, they associated themselves with men, in order to obtain children. But the magistracy, and all public offices, they kept entirely in their own hands. The men, as the women are with us, were employed in household affairs, submitting themselves wholly to the authority of their wives. They were not permitted to take any part in military affairs, or to have any command, or any public authority, which might have any tendency to encourage them to cast off the yoke of their wives. As soon as any child was born, it was delivered to the father, to be fed with milk, or such other food as was suitable to its age. If females were born, they feared their breasts, that they might not be burdensome to them when they grew up; for they considered them as great hinderances in fighting.
Justin represents the Amazonian republic to have taken its rise in Scythia. 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 era, and that of Semiramis and their son Ninus, 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 incursions 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 resolving to revenge their death, and at the same time to provide for their own security, resolved to form a new kind of government, to choose 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, 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 showing their neighbours that all their efforts to drive them thence or 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 flight 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 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, Philostratus, 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 burdensome, 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, a hot brazen instrument, 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.
Plutarch, treating of the Amazons in his life of Theseus, considers the accounts which had been preserved concerning them as partly fabulous, and partly true. He gives some account of a battle, which had been fought between the Athenians and the Amazons at Athens; and he relates some particulars of this battle which had been recorded by an ancient writer named Clidemus. He says, "That the left wing of the Amazons moved towards the place which is yet called Amazonium, and the right to a place called Pryx, near Chrysa; upon which the Athenians, issuing from behind,