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 STEABO AND ARRIAN. 215 of disbelief applied with equal force to the ancient stories and to the modern, rejected both the one and the other. But he remarks at the same time, not without some surprise, that it was usual with most persons to adopt a middle course, to retain the Ama zons as historical phenomena of the remote past, but to disallow them as realities of the present, and to maintain that the breed had died out. 1 The accomplished intellect of Julius Caesar did not scruple to acknowledge them as having once conquered and held in dominion a large portion of Asia; 2 and the compromise be- tween early, traditional, and religious faith on the one hand, and pcius, c. 35. Plin. N. H. vi. 7. Plutarch still retains the old description of Amazons from the mountains near the Thermodon. Appian keeps clear of this geographical error, probably copying more exactly the language of The- ophanes, who must have been well aware that when Lucullus besieged The- miskyra, he did not find it defended by the Amazons (see Appian, Bell. Mith- ridat. c. 78). Ptolemy (v. 9) places the Amazons in the imperfectly known regions of Asiatic Sarmatia, north of the Caspian and near the river Rha (Volga). " This fabulous community of women (observes Forbiger) Hand Such der alten Geographic, ii. 77, p. 457) was a phenomenon much too inter- esting for the geographers easily to relinquish." 1 Strabo, xi. p. 505. 'Siov 6e TL ov[t(3ej37)Ke TU> 2,6yo Trepl ruv 'A/j.a6vuv Oi jiev yap aTJkoL rb #ui?c5(5ef KOI TO iaTOpiKov 6tupia/j.Evov %ovai ' TU yap ira- Aaiu Kal ipevtifj Kal TspaTudTj, fiv$oi KaXovvrai' [Note. Strabo does not always speak of the fivdoi in this disrespectful tone ; he is sometimes much displeased with those who dispute the existence of an historical kernel in the inside, especially with regard to Homer.] ij 6' iaropla fiovktrai rdAjytfef, avre xatM- ibv, O.VTE VEOV Kal Tb TEpar66ovf KOifjaaiTo kirl rf/v aA- JiOTpiav, Kal KparrjasiEv ov T<; fiovov, uars Kal [tsxpi rf/f vi>v 'Iwv/af TrpoeTi&Etv, u^a Kal dianovnov arel^aiTO arpariav fJ-expi rrt 'A.TTIKTJC ; "A/l/ld fiijv ravTa ye aiiTti Kal vvv Aeyrrat irepl avruv e irtr si v s i 6e TTJV IdioTijTa Kal T b TT IGT eveadai r a ira?.aia fj.a%.%,ov f) r<J vvv . There are however, other passages in which he speaks of the Ama- zons as realities. Justin (ii. 4) recognizes the great power and extensive conquests of the Amazons in very early times, but says that they gradually declined down to the reign of Alexander, in whose time there were just a ftio remaining ; the queen with these few visited Alexander, but shortly afterwards the whole breed became extinct. This hypothesis has the merit of convenience, per haps of ingenuity. ' Suetonius, Jul. Caesar, c 22. "In SyriA quoque regrasse Semiramia