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The Iliad contains two direct references to the Amazons:--namely, in the story of Bellerophon 1 and in a passage from the famous teichoscopy. 2 The context to which the first of these belongs is classed by critics as an "echo" from the pre-Homeric saga, and therefore it may be inferred that the Amazon tradition in Greek literature dates from a time even earlier than the Homeric poems. The description of the women here is very slight, being given by the epithet ἀντιανείρας of the line τὸ τρίτον αῦ᾽ κατέπεφνεν Ἀμαζόνας ἀντιανείρας, 3 but, from the facts that battle with them is considered a severe test of the hero's valour and that as warriors they are ranked with the monstrous chimaera, the fierce Solymi, and picked men of Lycia, we gather that they are conceived as beings to be feared. The scene of combat with them is Lycia. The second of the two passages cited above is more definite. Priam, exclaiming on the happy lot of Agamemnon, who has been pointed out to him, says to Helen: "Oh, happy Atreïd, fate's child, blessed with prosperity! Verily, to thee are many subject, youths of the Achaeans! Once did I go to vine-rich Phrygia, where I beheld vast numbers of Phrygian men with swift-moving steeds, the people of Otreus and godlike Mygdon, who were then encamped by the banks of the Sangarius. For I was numbered an ally with these on that day when the Amazons came, pitted against men. Yet even these were not as many as are the quick-glancing Achaeans." Although the characterisation is the same as in the Bellerophon story
[paragraph continues] (Ἀμαζόνες ἀντιάνειραι), there is gain in that the impression of the Amazons as a mighty band of warriors is strengthened, also that the event has its place in the conventional chronology of Greek legend, antedating the Trojan War. It is to be noted, moreover, that here the Amazons are the aggressors on the confines of Phrygia.
There is another allusion in Homer to the Amazons, although this is indirect rather than direct. It occurs in the second book of the Iliad, where the spot of assembly for the Trojans and their allies is designated: 4 "There is before the city a certain lofty barrow, in the plain far away, standing detached on this side and on that, which men, forsooth, call Batieia, but the immortals name it the grave of swift-bounding Myrina. Here then were the Trojans numbered and their allies." The scholiast and the commentary of Eustatius on the passage tell that this Myrina was an Amazon, the daughter of Teucer and the wife of Dardanus, and that from her the city Myrina in Aeolis was said to have been named. 5 It seems reasonable to suppose that the commentators are correct, for in later literature we hear much of an Amazon by this name, and there is frequent mention of graves of various Amazons, here and there in Greek lands, always regarded with wonder and awe akin to the reverence with which Homer mentions the tomb of Myrina.
The Amazons then, as they appear in the Homeric poems, are a horde of warrior women who strive against men, and with whom conflict is dangerous even to the bravest of heroes. They belong to Asia Minor, seemingly at home in the neighbourhood of Lycia and opponents of the Phrygians on the river Sangarius About the grave of one of their number there lurks a hint of the supernatural. The poet does not
say whether she was friend or foe of Troy. On the analogy of similar graves pointed out in various parts of Greece, she who lay buried there may well have been a foe, yet later Greek commentators saw in this one an ancestress of the royal line of Troy.
In this they may have drawn on the Aethiopis, which tells of an alliance between Amazons and Trojans. We pass thus from the Homeric Epic to the Epic Cycle. Proclus in the Χρηστομάθεια Γραμματική, whence Photius quotes excerpts, says that the last book of the Iliad was followed by the Aethiopis in five books, written by Arctinus of Miletus (circa 750 B.C.). He starts the argument thus: "The Amazon Penthesilea, daughter of Ares, a Thracian by birth, appears to give aid to the Trojans. In the pride of her valour Achilles slays her, and the Trojans bury her. Achilles destroys Thersites for speaking slander against him and carping at his alleged love for Penthesilea; whence there is a division among the Greeks in regard to the murder of Thersites." It is not possible to trace the story of Penthesilea beyond the date of the Aethiopis. How much the poet made of the romantic situation drily described by Proclus, it cannot be determined, for the evidence has perished with the work. Certainly it did not lose in pathetic details at the bands of the writers and painters of later years. The outline preserved by Proclus speaks only of the "alleged love" of Achilles for the queen, yet that affords a starting-point for the play of much romantic fancy in subsequent times. 6 The fact that in the Aethiopis Penthesilea is called a Thracian raises the question whether the author does this lightly, or whether he has serious thought
of Thrace as the home of the race and of Ares as their patron deity. Diodorus 7 gives Ares as the father of Penthesilea and Otrere as her mother, and St. Basil 8 adds that she was queen of the Amazons of Alope in Pontus, but elsewhere 9 Otrere too is called a daughter of Ares, her mother being Harmonia, while her children are Hippolyta and Penthesilea. Ares, however, is quite steadily named by Greek writers as the father of the Amazons in general, and Harmonia, as their mother. 10
Another Amazon is mentioned by name in an epic fragment preserved by the scholiast on Pindar's third Nemean Ode, line 64: "Telamon of insatiate battle-shout was the first to bring light to our comrades by slaying man-destroying, blameless Melanippe, own sister to the golden-girdled queen." This new character is attested an Amazon by the epithet ἀνδρολέτειραν, a vigorous variant on ἀντιάνειρα, and by her kinship with the "golden-girdled queen," who can be none other than Hippolyta. The adjective ἀμώμητον is conventional and colourless. The fragment must belong to a long passage--if not to a whole poem--descriptive of the combat waged by Telamon and his comrades against the Amazons. 11
That the well-worn story of Heracles and the "golden-girdled
queen" had its place in some song of the Epic Cycle seems a reasonable admission, 12 and it may therefore be considered proper to sketch its simple outline, as it appears in later poetry and prose. By the excellent testimony of the early vases which show Heracles and the Amazon together the epic source of the later versions of the tale is dated in the period from the eighth to the sixth century B.C. The general plot is this:--Heracles, arrived at Themiscyra, prepares to give battle for the girdle, in search of which he has been sent, but succeeds in obtaining it from the queen without force of arms, whereupon Hera arouses the other Amazons against him. In the fight which ensues Heracles is victorious, but he slays Hippolyta. 13 For the first time we hear of Themiscyra on the Thermodon as the home-city of the Amazons. As in the case of Penthesilea and Achilles this legend of Heracles and Hippolyta has a touch of romance.
Even more romantic interest gathers about the story of Theseus and his Amazon, called usually Antiope, but often Hippolyta. The secret of this lies probably in the great vogue accorded to the traditional adventures of Theseus, the national hero of Athens. As in vase painting Heracles, once popular with the masters of the old style, was gradually crowded aside by Theseus, so it happened in literature. It would seem that the epic from which the story of Theseus and
[paragraph continues] Antiope 14 was derived was later than that which was the source of the tale of Heracles, for Theseus appears in company with the Amazons only on vases of the red-figured technique, never on the older specimens of ceramic art. 15 According to Pausanias 16 there were two versions of the story of Antiope: that of Pindar, who told that she was stolen by Pirithoüs and Theseus, and that of Agias or Hegias of Troezen, who told that when Heracles with Theseus as a companion was besieging Themiscyra, Antiope betrayed the city for love of Theseus. The Athenian story of the invasion of Attica by the Amazons in search of their queen complements either version. How much material Euripides drew from the Cycle for his conception of the mother of Hippolytus as the discarded wife of Theseus cannot be determined.
The contribution which the Epic Cycle seems to have made to the idea of the Amazons presented by Homer may be summed up as characterisation of individuals of the race. To Homer the Amazons are merely a horde of redoubtable warriors, who appear at the gates of the Asiatic world. To the later epic they are a people who dwell in a city on the Euxine at the mouth of the Thermodon. They are thus conceived as a settled race on the outskirts of civilisation. They belong to the eastern lands whither only adventurers and hardy colonists dared to sail. The stories told of their heroines, Penthesilea, Hippolyta, and Antiope, bring the race into direct contact with Greek legendary history.
To say that in Homer the Amazons are creatures of fable, in the Cycle women of romantic legend, and to the Greek
historians a race of the barbarians, seems a more or less serviceable way of expressing the growth of thought on this subject, so far as it is now to be ascertained. The value of such a statement lies in its being suggestive, rather than strictly accurate in detail. It is only another way of saying that epic verse as a medium of narration had given place to prose. Evidently the invasion of Attica, an event probably first described in the Cycle, is the historic fact, as the Greek historians regarded it, on which all doubts about the reality of the Amazons 17 might be broken, for as a memorial there were to be seen many tombs of these women in Greek lands. 18 The tale which Pausanias 19 heard about the Hippolyta who was buried at Megara is probably typical of the poetic legends current among the country-folk wherever there was the tradition of the Amazons' coming:--"I will write her story as the Megarians tell it: When the Amazons made their expedition for Antiope's sake and were overcome by Theseus, it was the fate of the many to die in battle, but Hippolyta, who was sister to Antiope and was at that time in command of the women, fled with a few to Megara. But, inasmuch as she had fared so ill with her armament, and was cast down by the circumstances of the present, and was still more discouraged about a safe return to Themiscyra, she died of grief, and the shape of her tomb is like to an Amazonian shield." The place given to the invasion of the Amazons in the chronicles
of the historians seems to have been as fixed as that of the Trojan War. Herodotus 20 represents the Athenians claiming a post of honour before the battle of Plataea, supporting their plea by these "deeds of eld"' (τὰ παλαιά): first, their succour of the Heraclidae, second, their campaign against Thebes in vengeance of the dead followers of Polynices, third, their courage in the face of the invaders, "who, coming from the river Thermodon, fell once upon the Attic land," and, finally, their inferiority to none in the Trojan War. The order of events here places this invasion before the Trojan War, a chronological arrangement in accord with the traditional date of Theseus.
Herodotus, it will be observed, keeps to the geographical theory of the Cycle, placing the home of these warriors on the banks of the Thermodon. Strabo 21 clearly follows Herodotus and his successors, for he calls the plain about Themiscyra τὸ τῶν Ἀμαζόνων πεδίον, but Diodorus, 22 giving the account of Dionysius of Mitylene, who, on his part, drew on Thymoetas, 23 states that a great horde of Amazons under Queen Myrina started from Libya, passed through Egypt and Syria, and stopped at the Caïcus in Aeolis, near which they founded several cities. Later, he says, they established Mitylene a little way beyond the Caïcus.
In addition to Myrina in Aeolis 24 and Mitylene on Lesbos, several cities of Asia Minor boasted that they were founded by the Amazons. 25 Consistent with these claims is the fact
that in this neighbourhood the figure or head of an Amazon was in vogue as a coin-type, 26 and it is to be noted that such devices are very rarely found on coins elsewhere. In a fragment of Ephorus, who was a native of Cyme and, therefore, presumably conversant with the details of the legends thereabouts, the Amazons are said to have lived in and near Mysia, Caria, and Lydia. This evidence as a whole seems to point, not to the plain at the mouth of the Thermodon as the traditional dwelling-place of the race, but to a centre much further west, namely, to that part of Asia Minor which borders on the Aegean. It is easy too reconcile this with the geographical setting of the story of Bellerophon, wherein Homer tells that the Amazons were sought and found somewhere near Lycia. Not far away are the Island of Patmos, where there was a place called Amazonium, 27 and the island of Lemnos, where there was another Myrina. 28 Arctinus is said 29 to have introduced into the saga the motive of a cavalry combat waged by the Lydians and Magnesians against the Amazons, of which the scene would naturally be in this part of the world, but this same writer's statement, that Penthesilea, who came to the help of Troy, was a Thracian, directs the attention away from Asia Minor, 30 although Thrace lay just across the Hellespont, near the Troad. It may well be, however, that the thought of Thrace in intimate association with this queen is rather to be aligned with the facts indicating yet a third traditional home for the race, namely, in the regions of Scythia north of the Euxine and Lake Maeotis.
Herodotus evidently considered Themiscyra, the original
home of the Amazons. 31 At any rate, having once designated them the "women from the Thermodon," he does not go back of the characterisation in search of their antecedents. Perhaps the service which he does perform is of greater value, in that, by pointing out a group of people whom he believes to be descended from the Amazons, he seems to be pushing these forebears of the legendary time into the full light of history. He tells 32 of the migration of a band of Amazons into the wild northern region between the Black Sea and the Caspian, beyond Lake Maeotis and the Tanaïs. From their intermarriage with the Scythians the Sauromatae were descended, a Scythian tribe among whom the women were warriors and hunters. Other writers 33 also speak of the Amazons on the Maeotic Lake, a sheet of water best known to the Greeks by its western boundary, the Tauric Chersonese, the place where Iphigeneia lived as priestess of the cruel goddess. Even the Caucasus mountains and the hazily conceived Colchian land lay Dearer to the Hellenic world than this savage Scythian region. Greek travellers brought back accounts of strange customs among these northern tribes. They told of the Tauri, that they immolated all shipwrecked strangers to their Artemis, 34 and of the Sauromatae, that none of their women
married until she had slain a man of the enemy, 35 The Greek equivalent, ἀνδροκτόνοι, which Herodotus gives for the Scythian word meaning "Amazon" (οἰόρπατα), is strongly suggestive of the epithets, ἀντιάνειραι and ἀνδρολέτειραι, used of the Amazons. 36
Aeschylus in the Prometheus Bound 37 also associates the Amazons with the north. The geography of this passage is interesting in comparison with that of Herodotus, because the poet antedates the historian and therefore represents the vague reports of these regions which preceded the carefully considered mapping evolved by Herodotus. Aeschylus places the Nomad Scythians far to the north, near the Ocean, in which Strabo 38 follows him, whereas Herodotus 39 finds them definitely established on the Gulf of Carcinitis, west of the Tauric Chersonese. The Chalybes, whom Herodotus 40 and Strabo 41 locate south of the Black Sea, are by Aeschylus relegated to northern Scythia. And, strangest of all, he seems to place Mount Caucasus north of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. South of this are "the Amazons, man-hating, who will in a later time dwell in Themiscyra by the Thermodon." Elsewhere in the Prometheus 42 the Amazons are called "the dwellers in the Colchian land, maidens fearless in battle," and their home is evidently placed near that of "the throng of Scythia, who possess the land at the ends of the earth about Lake Maeotis." In the Suppliants 43 Aeschylus speaks again of the Amazons, here as τὰς ἀνάνδρους κρεοβόρουσ τ᾽ Ἀμαζόνας, a characterisation which suggests another line of his, quoted by Strabo: 44
[paragraph continues] ἀλλ᾽ ἱππάκης βρωτῆρες εὔνομοι Σκύθαι. Aeschylus then apparently places the original home of the Amazons in the country about Lake Maeotis, conceiving this region to be practically identical with the Colchian land, or contiguous to it. He speaks of their migrating thence to Themiscyra, while Herodotus holds the opposite theory, that they migrated from an original home at Themiscyra to Scythia. It seems proper to give the preference to the latter as the view commonly held in antiquity, for Herodotus is the later writer and the more scientific student of geography. Strabo, who had large opportunities for the comparison of conflicting accounts, pointedly says 45 that Themiscyra, the plain thereabouts, and the overhanging mountains belonged to the Amazons, and that they were driven from this home. 46
It may be concluded that there were three centres to which Greek tradition assigned the Amazons:--one in western Asia Minor,--a large district in the form of a strip stretching from the Propontis to the tip of Lycia; the second in Pontus along the Euxine, with a western boundary at Sinope, an eastern at Colchis, and a southern undefined, somewhere in the interior of Cappadocia; a third in Scythia, conceived as the Tauric Chersonese, the regions east of Lake Maeotis, those north of the same lake, and probably also those which border the Euxine on the north and west, including Thrace. Each of these is an area so large that only by extension of the term may it be denoted a centre. Threads of affiliation reach out also to Libya, Egypt, and Syria. Out of this maze the source of the Amazon legend is to be sought. To round out this brief summary of the geography of the legend the list should
be set down of the places in Greece proper which are especially mentioned in the tale of the invasion of the Amazons:--Athens, 47 Troezen, 48 Megara, 49 Chaeronea, 50 Chalcis in Euboea, 51 Thessaly. 52
But the story of the Amazons as the Greeks thought of them would not be complete without several additional details. Among these is the tradition, which has seized powerfully on the imagination of later times, that it was the custom of these women to burn out the right breast, in order that they might the better draw the bow. 53 The story is usually explained as an attempt to derive the word Ἀμαζών, from μαζός with prefix of ἀ privative. It seems probable that this false etymology grew out of the theory that the Sarmatians were descendants of the Amazons, for Hippocrates of Cos, a younger contemporary of Herodotus, gives a detailed account of the practice among the Sarmatian women. 54 Philostratus 55 takes pains to say that the Amazons were not thus mutilated. Most cogent as an argument against the universality of the theory in ancient times is the fact that nowhere among the extant remains of Greek art is there a representation of a single-breasted Amazon. All that can be brought forward for the other side from artistic sources is that there was evidently a convention in favour of showing one breast bare in plastic and pictorial delineations of these women.
This naturally introduces the general subject of the treatment of the Amazons in Greek art. The battle between Greeks and Amazons was a favourite theme with the sculptors of friezes. Its companion pieces are the fight between Lapiths and Centaurs and the historic struggle between Greeks and Persians. In each of these subjects the Greek requisite of simplicity in art demanded that the essential element should be sought by analysis, in order that the composition might present the situation in a telling manner. It follows that the point brought out in the scenes from the Persian Wars is that Greek is pitted against Persian, in the Centauromachy, that it is civilised man against bestial man, in the conflict with the Amazons, that the battle is between man and woman. Therefore the Greek artist emphasises, in the first, the national dress of the combatants, in the second, the savage appearance of the monsters, in the third, the womanhood of the Amazons contrasted with the manhood of their enemies. Uniformly in the friezes the Amazons are beautiful. Those who have fallen are treated by the artist with peculiar tenderness; those who are brought to bay are spirited and valiant, but also delicate and frail; those who are for the moment victorious Show no savage exultation, as do the fierce Centaurs in the same situation. Their costume is usually a short tunic girt up for action, frequently open at one side in order to display the woman's figure. The effort is always, not to show them to be foreigners who wear a fantastic garb, but to indicate plainly that they are women warring with men.
The famous free-standing statues of Amazons which have come down to us, and which inherit the artistic tradition of the masters of the fifth century, 56 show the same sympathetic treatment. The face is calm and ideally beautiful, the body is that of a young woman in her prime, strong, supple, and
graceful, dressed in a short tunic which leaves one breast bare. 57
There are also examples of the mounted Amazon in sculpture. Perhaps one of the finest bits in existence is the fragment of horse and woman-rider from Epidaurus, now in the National Museum at Athens. This Amazon wears a short belted tunic and also a mantle fastened about her neck. She is remarkably lithe and beautiful; she sits her horse perfectly; best of all is the contrast between her slender body and the powerful and sinewy frame of the animal.
In the museum at Naples there is a piece of sculpture in the style of a later period. It represents a dead Amazon, lying supine. She wears the conventional dress, the short tunic which reveals the bare breast, and under her is a spear. Her lips are open in the last struggle for breath. About the whole figure there is a note of sadness. The distended breasts suggest maternity, a detail which possibly indicates that the figure of a baby was originally grouped with this Amazon. Special interest attaches to this work as a type of the Amazon in the last days of Greek art, before its vigour had departed, for it is doubtless a detail, in close copy of the original, from the group which Attalus set up on the Acropolis at Athens. 58
In vase-paintings, rather than in sculpture, we find the characteristic weapons of the Amazons, the shield shaped like an ivy-leaf, 59 the Scythian bow, 60 and the battle-axe. 61 Here also we see the mantle of panther's skin similar to that which Penthesilea wore in the painting by Polygnotus at Delphi. 62
[paragraph continues] The types of Amazons in vase-painting are numerous. They are shown in every conceivable situation indicative of their prowess in battle and in the hunt,--on foot, on horseback, in chariots, preparing for combat, taking the ephebes' oath, bearing away the dead, and so on. 63 The groups on the vases frequently recall the friezes. In addition to these portrayals of the Amazons in general the vases show scenes from the Heracles saga and from the legend of Theseus.
The inference is inevitable, that among the great painters the Amazons were popular as a subject, for it is to be presumed that in these themes, as in others, the potters' workshops merely followed the fashion of the art which they distantly reflected. First-hand evidence of the manner in which. painters managed the presentation is not available. The vases furnish the best information on this point, and their testimony may be eked out by a few passages from literature. 64
Such then in a general way is the tradition of the Amazons, which had an important place in Greek art and literature. This review is the natural introduction to the study of cults associated with these women, for without a clear understanding of the legend certain details of cult-practice are obscure. The points which should bear emphasis are these:--the persistent belief among the Greeks in the real existence of Amazons; the conception of them as unusually fierce warriors, and this in spite of various tendencies of thought destructive of such an idea; the habit of associating them with certain definite geographical centres.
1:1 Iliad, 6. 168-195.
1:2 Ibid. 3. 182-190.
1:3 Ibid. 6.186.
2:4 Ibid. 2. 811-815.
2:5 Cf. Diod. Sic. 3. 54, 55; Strabo, 12. 573; 13. 623; Plato, Cratyl. 392a; Schol. Oppian, Halieutica, 3. 403; Hesych. s.v. βατίεια and s. κάρθμοιο Μυρίνης; Eust. ad D. Per. 828.
3:6 Save for one unimportant version (Dar. Phryg.), wherein Penthesilea is slain by Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, her death by the hand of her lover Achilles is a regular convention in Greek literature. Cf. Q. Sm. l. 19 ff., 134; Nonnus, 35. 28; Hellan, in Tzetz. Post-Hom. 19; Et. M. 493, 41; Lycoph. 997; Diet. Cret. 3. 15; 4. 2; Eust. Hom. 1696, 52; Hyg. Fab. 112, 225; Serv. ad Aen. l. 491; Just. 2. 4; Ovid, Her. 21. 118; Prop. 3. 9, 14. For evidence concerning the treatment of the subject in Greek painting see Paus. 5. 11, 6.
4:7 Diod. Sic. 2. 46.
4:8 St. Basil, s.v. Ἀλόπη.
4:9 Cf. Ap. Rh. 2. 389 and Schol. Tzetz. Post-Hom. 8. 189; Schol. Ap. Rh. 2. 1032; Schol. Iliad, 3. 189; Lyc. Cass. 997; Hyg. Fab. 30, 112, 163, 223, 225.
4:10 Pherec. ap. Schol. Ap. Rh. 2. 992; Lys. 2. 4; Isoc. 4. 68; 12. 193; Nonnus, 34. 158. For a discussion of the bearing of this fact see Chapter V.
4:11 Welcker (Der epische Cyclus, 2. pp. 200 ff.) derives the lines from the Atthis or Amazonides of Hegesinus, a writer for whom the only extant source is Pausanias, 9. 29, 1 ff. Lübbert, however (De Pindari Studiis Hesiodeis et Homericis, pp. 10 ff.), derives them from the Eoeae of Hesiod, an opinion which Rzach follows (ed. of Hesiod, p. 197). A third theory is advanced by Corey (De Amazonum Antiquissimis Figuris, p. 42), namely, that the fragment is from the work of Cynaethus (circa 504 B.C.). On the chance that it is older than Corey believes, the fragment should be considered along with the data which may be collected about the Amazons from the literature of the centuries immediately following Homer.
5:12 Robert (Hermes, 19. pp. 485 ff.) conjectures a single epic, the Amazonika by Onasus, as the source of the accounts of the expedition of Heracles and Telamon given by Pindar in three places, Nemean, 3. 36 ff.; 4. 25 ff.; Isthmian, 6 (5). 27 ff. He dates this lost epic before the sixth century B.C. Corey (op. cit. pp. 35 ff.) finds evidence for two epic accounts, the first epitomised by Hellanicus (Fr. 33, 136, 138 in Müller, Frag. Hist. Graec. 1. pp. 49-64), the second given by Apollodorus (Bibl. 2. 5, 9, 7-12; 6. 4-7, 1).
5:13 On Heracles and Hippolyta cf. Plut. Thes. 37; Paus. 1. 41, 7; Ap. Rh. 2. 781 and Schol. 1001; Nonn. 25. 251; Q. Sm. 1. 24; 6. 242; Planud, Anthol. 91; Isocr. 12. 193; Apollod. 2. 5, 9; Diod. Sic. 2. 46, 416; Plut. Quaest. Gr. 45; Pherec. ap. Athen. 13. 557, 9; Arrian, Anab. 7. 13, 5; Luc. Anach. 34; Zen. 5. 33; Et. M. 1 402, 13.
6:14 On Theseus and Antiope cf. Paus. 5. 11, 4-5; Plut. Thes. 26 (from Philochorus); Isocr. Panath. 193; Plut. Thes. (quoting Theseid); Pindar ap. Paus. 1. 2, 1; Pherec. ap. Plut. Thes. 26; Schol. Pind. Nem. 5. 89; Plut. (Thes. 27) and Euripides (Hippolytus) name this Amazon Hippolyta.
6:15 On the authority of Welcker most scholars consider the Nosti of Agias or Hegias the epic source for the tales of Theseus and Antiope.
6:16 Paus. 1. 2, 1.
7:17 For a good statement of the general attitude in ancient times on this question of the reality of the Amazons see Strabo, 11. p. 505. According to Lysias (Epitaph. 3) the race of the Amazons was almost exterminated in the invasion of Attica. Cf. Isocr. Panegyr. p. 206; Demosth. Epitaph.; Plato, Menex. 9; De Legg. 2. p. 804.
7:18 Tomb of Antiope at Athens, Paus. 1. 2, 1; cf. Pseudo-Plato, Axioch. pp. 364a-365a. Tomb of Hippolyta at Megara, Paus. 1. 41, 7; cf. Plut. Thes. 27. Tomb of Amazons at Chaeronea and in Thessaly, Plut. Thes. 28. Tomb of Myrina near Troy, Iliad, 2. 811, and schol. and Eust. ad l: cf. Strabo, 12. 573; 13. 623. Tomb of Anaea the city of that name, Steph. Byz. s.v. Ἀναία (quoting Ephorus). Tomb of Penthesilea, Aristeas, ep. 5 (Bergk, 1900).
7:19 Paus. 1. 41, 7.
8:20 Herod. 9. 27.
8:21 Strabo, 2. 126.
8:22 Diod. Sic. 3. 52 ff.
8:23 Cf. Diod. Sic. 3. 66.
8:24 There were two other cities in Asia Minor named Myrina. All three were connected with the name of the Amazon, but among them the city of Aeolis seems to take precedence. Cf. Eust. ad Dion. Per. 828. 5; Schol. Iliad, 2. 814; Diod. Sic. 3. 54, 55; Strabo, 12. 573; 13. 623.
8:25 Cf. Klügmann, Über die Amazonen der kleinasiatischen Städte, in Philologus, 30. pp. 529 ff. These cities were Ephesus, Smyrna, Cyme, Paphos, and Sinope.
9:26 Cf. especially coins of Smyrna.
9:27 Anon. St. Mar. M. 283.
9:28 Plin. N. H. 4. 12.
9:29 Nic. Dam. Fr. 62.
9:30 The story that Penthesilea bore to Achilles a child Caÿster is probably too late to be of any value to this discussion.
10:31 As it has been stated (p. 6), this is the geographical theory of the Cycle. It should be added that Hecataeus, who associates Sinope on the Euxine with the Amazons (Fr. 352), and Mela, who mentions a city Amazonium in Pontus (1. 19; cf. Plin. N. H. 6. 4), are probably to be classed with the non-epic sources who follow the theory.
10:32 Herod. 4. 110-117.
10:33 The Amazons are often styled Maeotides. Cf. Mela, 1. 1; Justin, 2. 1; Curt. 5. 4; Lucan, 2; Ovid, Fasti, 3; El. 12; Ep. Sab. 2. 9; Verg. Aen. 6. 739.
In discussing the geography of this region about Lake Maeotis, a note is called for on the confusion which Pape finds (Wörterbuch, s.v. Ἀμαζών) between Ἀλαζῶνες and Ἀμαζῶνες. It would seem that the former is a misspelling for the latter, appearing in Strabo's quotation from Ephorus (12. 550). That the masculine article is used with it does not seem odd, if one recalls St. Basil's statement (s.v. Ἀμαζών), that the word may stand in the masculine. Herodotus mentions (4. 17, 52) a folk called Ἀλιζῶνες, whose country lay on the northeast shore of the Euxine, but these are not Amazons.
10:34 Herod. 4. 102 ff.
11:35 Herod. 4. 117.
11:37 Prom. V. 707-735.
11:38 Strabo, p. 492.
11:39 Herod. 4. 19.
11:40 Herod. 1. 28.
11:41 Strabo, p. 678.
11:42 Prom. V. 415-419.
11:43 Supplices, 287.
11:44 Strabo, 7, p. 300.
12:45 Strabo, p. 505.
12:46 As the Greeks travelled more, there was a growing tendency among them to place the original home of the Amazons further and further away. As they did not find such a folk in western Asia Minor, or along the southern shore of the Euxine, it was natural for them to suppose that they were to be sought in the little explored regions of Scythia, also of Libya. Such reasoning was reinforced by reports which came of Scythian and Libyan women who were warriors.
13:47 Paus. 1. 2, 1; Diod. Sic. 4. 28, 2, 3; Clitod, ap. Plut. Thes. 27; Isaeus ap. Harpocration; Suidas, s.v. Ἀμαζόνειον.
13:48 Paus. 2. 31, 4-5.
13:49 Paus. 1. 41, 7; Plut. Thes. 27.
13:50 Plut. Thes. 28.
13:51 Plut. Thes. 37, 3.
13:52 Plut. Thes. 28.
13:53 Schol. and Eust. ad Iliad, 3. 189; Diod. Sic. 2. 45; Justin, 2. 4, 5; Apollod. 2. 5, 9; Arrian, Anab. 7. 13, 2. Cf. Latin Unimammia of Plautus, Curcul. 3. 75.
13:54 Hippocr. De Acre Locis et Aquis, 17. Herodotus seems to have been the first to speak of the Sarmatians as descendants of the Amazons (4. 110-117). In this he was followed by Ephorus (Fr. 103); Scymn. Chius, 5. 102; Plato, De Legg. 7. p. 804; Diod. Sic. 2. 34.
13:55 Philostr. Heroïd. 20. 42.
14:56 Cf. Plin. N. H. 34. 75.
15:57 In the Mattei type the left breast is bare, in the Capitoline, the right. In the Berlin type and in that in Lansdowne House the left breast is entirely bare, and the right is almost entirely so.
15:58 Paus. 1. 25, 2; Plut. Anton. 60; S. Q. 1995, 1996.
15:59 Xen. ap. Pollux, 1. 134; Plin. N. H. 3. 43; Paus. 1. 41, 7.
15:60 Paus. 10. 31, 8.
15:61 The double-axe is called σάγαρις (securis) and also πέλεκυς. Cf. Xen. Anab. 4. 4; Q. Sm. 1. 597. Plutarch (Pomp. 35) mentions the axe and the pelta as Amazonian arms. The latter was carried also by the Thracians and Persians.
15:62 Paus. 10. 31, 8.
16:63 Corey tabulates the types which he finds in vase-painting, op. cit. pp. 49 ff.
16:64 Cf. e. g. Paus. 1. 15, 2; 10. 31, 8. Cf. Frazer, Paus. 2. 139.