[8]
They so prevailed over the invading host of the
Amazons as to expel them beyond the Phasis, and the host of Eumolpus and of many
another foeman they drove not only out of their own land but also from the lands
of all the other Greeks—invaders whom all those dwelling on our front
to the westward neither withstood nor possessed the power to halt.1 Moreover, they were
styled the saviors of the sons of Heracles, who himself was the savior of the
rest of mankind, when they arrived in this land as suppliants, fleeing before
Eurystheus. In addition to all these and many other noble deeds they refused to
suffer the lawful rites of the departed to be treated with despite when Creon
forbade the burial of “the seven against Thebes.”2
1 The female warriors known as Amazons were repelled by Theseus. The Phasis River in Colchis, now the Rion, was the legendary boundary between Europe and Asia. Eumolpus invaded Greece from Thrace but was halted by Erechtheus at Eleusis. The route to all parts of the mainland issued from Athens on the west side.
2 This phrase became proverbial as the title of a drama by Aeschylus. Theseus, king of Athens, gave aid to the suppliant wives of the Argive heroes when Creon, king of Thebes, refused burial to their slain husbands: Eur. Supp.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by Norman W. DeWitt, Ph.D., and Norman J. DeWitt, Ph.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1949.
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