Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/180

 172 the Amazons of the Thermodon were very likely transferred without sufficient ground to the Amazons of the Caucasus. Whether there existed any nearer connection between the two groups than that both performed some operation upon the right breast, and had some customs in common, does not concern us here. We may, therefore, dismiss the legends referring to the westerly Amazons, and confine our attention to the easterly variety.

First, we have to establish as nearly as possible their actual geographical position. According to Herodotus, Amazons were found among the Sauromatai, who lived between four and five days' journey north-east of the upper end of the Sea of Azov. Hippocrates places the Sauromatai in Europe, that is to say, west of the Don and of the Sea of Azov. But Scylax, in his Periplus of the Euxine, locates them much in the same position as Herodotus, on the left bank of the Don and contiguous to the Maiotai. Scymnus of Chios and the second anonymous author of the Periplus, place them in Europe, and identify the Maiotai with the Sauromatai, who were themselves a tribe of the Sarmatai. Strabo gives us three versions, which do not greatly differ. According to one, the Amazons were believed to live among the mountains above Albania (the lower valley of the Kur), but separated from the Albanians by the Scythian tribes of Glai and Lēgai, and by the Mermadalis river (Terek?). Others maintained that the Amazons bordered upon the Gargarenses, who lived at the northern foot of the Caucasian mountains, called Ceraunia, by which Strabo meant the south-eastern end of the range. According to a third report, the country of the Amazons and of the Siracene was traversed by a rapid