Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/245

 AMAZONS IN ASIA. 2J3 Authors placed them in Libya or Ethiopia ; and when the Pontic Greeks on the north-western shore of the Euxine had become acquainted with the hardy and daring character of the Sarmatian maidens, who were obliged to have slain each an enemy in battle as the condition of obtaining a husband, and who artificially prevented the growth of the right breast during childhood, - they could imagine no more satisfactory mode of accounting for such attributes than by deducing the Sarmatians from a colony of va- grant Amazons, expelled by the Grecian heroes from their terri- tory on the Thermodon. 1 Pindar ascribed the first establishment of the memorable temple of Artemis at Ephesus to the Amazons. And Pausanias explains in part the preeminence which this tem- ple enjoyed over every other in Greece by the widely diffused renown of its female founders, 2 respecting whom he observes (with perfect truth, if we admit the historical character of the old epic), that women possess an unparalleled force of resolution in resisting adverse events, since the Amazons, after having been first roughly handled by Herakles and then completely defeated Pausan. iv. 31,6 ; vii. 2. 4. Tacit. Ann. iii. 61. Scbol. Apollon. Ehod. ii. 965. The derivation of the name Sinope from an Amazon was given by Heka trcns (Fragm. 352). Themiskyra also had one of the Amazons for its epony- mus (Appian, Bell. Mithridat. 78). Some of the most venerated religious legends at Sinop6 were attached to the expedition of Herakles against the Amazons : Autolykns, the oracle- giving hero, worshipped with great solemnity even at the time when the town was besieged by Lucullus, was the companion of Heracles (Appian, ib. c.83). Even a small mountain village in the territory of Ephesus, called Latorcia, derived its name from one of the Amazons ( Athenae. i. p. 31 ). 1 Herodot. iv. 108-117, where he gives the long tale, imagined by the Pon- tic Greeks, of the origin of the Sarmatian nation. Compare Hippokrates, De Ae're, Locis et Aquis, c. 17; Ephorus, Fragm. 103 ; Skymn. Chius, v. 102; Plato, Legg. vii. p. 804 ; Diodor. ii. 34. The testimony of Hippokrates certifies the practice of the Sarmatian wo- men to check the growth of the right breast : Tdv de^iov 6s fiat^bv OVK Tlaidioiai -yap kovaiv en vijirioiaiv ai fir)Tepef ^aX/cetov rerexyrjfievov 7r' rovTf,) dicnrvpov TTOteovaat, Trpbf rbv fj.aov rt&eaai rdv de^iov nal SXJTE TTJV av^ijaiv ty&eiptw&ai, if de rbv de^iov ufibv nal Bpa^tova xHaav Tt/v ioxvv /cat ri> 7r/^i?of K.6i66vai. Ktesias also compares a warlike Sakian woman to the Amazons (Fragm. Persic, ii. pp. 221,449, Bahr). 2 Pausan. iv. 31,6; vii. 2, 4. Dionys. Perieget. 828