CHAPTER V.
THE Amazons are said to live among the mountains
above Albania. Theophanes, who accompanied Pompey in
his wars, and was in the country of the Albanians, says that
Gelæ and Legæ,
1 Scythian tribes, live between the Amazons
and the Albanians, and that the river Mermadalis
2 takes its
course in the country lying in the middle between these
people and the Amazons. But other writers, and among
these Metrodorus of Scepsis, and Hypsicrates, who were
themselves acquainted with these places, say that the Amazons bordered upon the Gargarenses
3 on the north, at the
foot of the Caucasian mountains, which are called Ceraunia.
When at home they are occupied in performing with their
own hands the work of ploughing, planting, pasturing cattle,
and particularly in training horses. The strongest among
them spend much of their time in hunting on horseback, and
practise warlike exercises. All of them from infancy have
the right breast seared, in order that they may use the arm with
ease for all manner of purposes, and particularly for throwing the javelin. They employ the bow also, and sagaris,
(a kind of sword,) and wear a buckler. They make helmets,
and coverings for the body, and girdles, of the skins of wild
animals. They pass two months of the spring on a neighbouring mountain, which is the boundary between them and
the Gargarenses. The latter also ascend the mountain according to some ancient custom for the purpose of performing common sacrifices, and of having intercourse with the
women with a view to offspring, in secret and in darkness,
the man with the first woman he meets. When the women
are pregnant they are sent away. The female children that
may be born are retained by the Amazons themselves, but
the males are taken to the Gargarenses to be brought up.
The children are distributed among families, in which the
master treats them as his own, it being impossible to ascertain
the contrary.
[
2]
The Mermodas,
4 descending like a torrent from the
mountains through the country of the Amazons, the Siracene,
and the intervening desert, discharges itself into the Mæotis.
5
It is said that the Gargarenses ascended together with the
Amazons from Themiscyra to these places, that they then
separated, and with the assistance of some Thracians and
Eubœans, who had wandered as far as this country, made war
against the Amazons, and at length, upon its termination, entered into a compact on the conditions above mentioned, namely,
that there should be a companionship only with respect to
offspring, and that they should live each independent of the
other.
[
3]
There is a peculiarity in the history of the Amazons.
In other histories the fabulous and the historical parts are
kept distinct. For what is ancient, false, and marvellous is
called fable. But history has truth for its object, whether
it be old or new, and it either rejects or rarely admits the
marvellous. But, with regard to the Amazons, the same facts
are related both by modern and by ancient writers; they are
marvellous and exceed belief. For who can believe that an
army of women, or a city, or a nation, could ever subsist
without men? and not only subsist, but make inroads upon
the territory of other people, and obtain possession not only
of the places near them, and advance even as far as the present Ionia, but even despatch an expedition across the sea to
Attica? This is as much as to say that the men of those
days were women, and the women men. But even now the
same things are told of the Amazons, and the peculiarity of
their history is increased by the credit which is given to
ancient, in preference to modern, accounts.
[
4]
They are said to have founded cities, and to have given
their names to them, as Ephesus, Smyrna, Cyme, Myrina,
besides leaving sepulchres and other memorials. Themiscyra,
the plains about the Thermodon, and the mountains lying
above, are mentioned by all writers as once belonging to the
Amazons, from whence, they say, they were driven out. Where
they are at present few writers undertake to point out, nor do
they advance proofs or probability for what they state; as in
the case of Thalestria, queen of the Amazons, with whom
Alexander is said to have had intercourse in Hyrcania with
the hope of having offspring. Writers are not agreed on this
point, and among many who have paid the greatest regard to
truth none mention the circumstance, nor do writers of the
highest credit mention anything of the kind, nor do those who
record it relate the same facts. Cleitarchus says that Thalestria set out from the Caspian Gates and Thermodon to
meet Alexander. Now from the Caspian Gates to Thermodon
are more than 6000 stadia.
[
5]
Stories circulated for the purpose of exalting the fame
[of eminent persons] are not received with equal favour by
all; the object of the inventors was flattery rather than truth;
they transferred, for example, the Caucasus to the mountains
of India, and to the eastern sea, which approaches close to
them, from the mountains situated above Colchis, and the
Euxine Sea. These are the mountains to which the Greeks
give the name of Caucasus, and are distant more than 30,000
stadia from India. Here they lay the scene of Prometheus
and his chains, for these were the farthest places towards the
east with which the people of those times were acquainted.
The expeditions of Bacchus and of Hercules against the
Indi indicate a mythological story of later date, for Hercules
is said to have released Prometheus a thousand years after he
was first chained to the rock. It was more glorious too for
Alexander to subjugate Asia as far as the mountains of India,
than to the recess only of the Euxine Sea and the Caucasus
The celebrity, and the name of the mountain, together with
the persuasion that Jason and his companions had accomplished the most distant of all expeditions when they had
arrived in the neighbourhood of the Caucasus, and the tradition that Prometheus had been chained on Caucasus at the
extremity of the earth, induced writers to suppose that they
should gratify the king by transferring the name of the
mountain to India.
[
6]
The highest points of the actual Caucasus are the most
southerly, and lie near Albania, Iberia, the Colchi, and Heniochi. They are inhabited by the people whom I have mentioned as assembling at Dioscurias. They resort thither
chiefly for the purpose of procuring salt. Of these tribes
some occupy the heights; others live in wooded valleys, and
subsist chiefly on the flesh of wild animals, wild fruits, and
milk. The heights are impassable in winter; in summer they
are ascended by fastening on the feet shoes as wide as drums,
made of raw hide, and furnished with spikes on account of the
snow and ice. The natives in descending with their loads
slide down seated upon skins, which is the practice in Media,
Atropatia, and at Mount Masius in Armenia, but there they
fasten circular disks of wood with spikes to the soles of their
feet. Such then is the nature of the heights of Caucasus.
[
7]
On descending to the country lying at the foot of these
heights the climate is more northerly, but milder, for the
land below the heights joins the plains of the Siraces. There
are some tribes of Troglodytæ who inhabit caves on account
of the cold. There is plenty
6 of grain to be had in the
country.
Next to the Troglodytee are Chamæcœt,
7 and a tribe called
Polyphagi (the voracious), and the villages of the Eisadici,
who are able to cultivate the ground because they are not
altogether exposed to the north.
[
8]
Immediately afterwards follow shepherd tribes, situated
between the Mæotis and the Caspian Sea, Nabiani, Pangani,
8
the tribes also of the Siraces and Aorsi.
The Aorsi and Siraces seem to be a fugitive people from
parts situated above. The Aorsi lie more to the north.
9
Abeacus, king of the Siraces, when Pharnases occupied
the Bosporus, equipped 20,000 horse, and Spadines, king of
the Aorsi 200,000, and the Upper Aorsi even a larger body,
for they were masters of a greater extent of territory, and
nearly the largest part of the coast of the Caspian Sea was
under their power. They were thus enabled to transport on
camels the merchandise of India and Babylonia, receiving
it from Armenians and Medes. They wore gold also in their
dress in consequence of their wealth.
The Aorsi live on the banks of the Tanaïs, and the Siraces
on those of Achardeus, which rises in Caucasus, and dis-
charges itself into the Mæotis.
