Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/246

 214 HISTORY OF GREECE. by Theseus, could yet find courage to play so conspicuous a part in the defence of Troy against the Grecian besiegers. 1 It is thus that in what is called early Grecian history, as th Greeks themselves looked back upon it, the Amazons were among the most prominent and undisputed personages. Nor will the cir- cumstance appear wonderful if we reflect, that the belief in them was first established at a time when the Grecian mind was fed with nothing else but religious legend and epic poetry, and that the incidents of the supposed past, as received from these sources, were addressed to their faith and feelings, without being required to adapt themselves to any canons of credibility drawn from present experience. But the time came when the historians of Alexander the Great audaciously abused this ancient credence. Amongst other tales calculated to exalt the dignity of that monarch, they affirmed that after his conquest and subjugation of the Per- sian empire, he had been visited in Hyrcania by Thalestris, queen of the Amazons, who admiring his warlike prowess, was anxious to be enabled to return into her own country in a condition to produce offspring of a breed so invincible. 2 But the Greeks had now been accustomed for a century and a half to historical and philosophical criticism and that uninquiring faith, which was readily accorded to the wonders of the past, could no longer be invoked for them when tendered as present reality. For the fable of the Amazons was here reproduced in its naked simplicity, without being ration- alized or painted over with historical colors. Some literary men indeed, among whom were Demetrius ot Skepsis, and the Mitylenaean Theophanes, the companion of Pom- pey in his expeditions, still continued their belief both in Ama- zons present and Amazons past ; and when it becomes notorious that at least there were none sucn on the banks of the Thermodon, these authors supposed them to have migrated from their original locality, and to have settled in the unvisited regions north of Mount Caucasus. 3 Strabo, on the contrary, feeling that the grounds 1 Pausan. i. 15, 2. tin, xlii. 4. The note of Freinshemius on the above passage of Quintus Cur- tins is full of valuable references on the subject of the Amazons.
 * Arrian, Exped. Alex, vii. 13; compare iv. 15 ; Quint. Curt. vi. 4; Jus-
 * Strabo, xi. p. 503-504 ; Appian, Bell. Mithridat. c. 103 ; Plutarch, Pott