1. The Amazons are said to live among the mountains above Albania.
Theophanes, who accompanied Pompey in his wars, and was in the country
of the Albanians, says that Gelæ and Legæ,[962] Scythian tribes, live
between the Amazons and the Albanians, and that the river
Mermadalis[963] takes its course in the country lying in the middle
between these people and the Amazons. But other writers, and among these
Metrodorus of Scepsis, and Hypsicrates, who were themselves acquainted
with these places, say that the Amazons bordered upon the
Gargarenses[964] on the north, at the foot of the Caucasian mountains,
which are called Ceraunia.
When [CAS. 504] at home they are occupied in performing with their own
hands the work of ploughing, planting, pasturing cattle, and
particularly in training horses. The strongest among them spend much of
their time in hunting on horseback, and practise warlike exercises. All
of them from infancy have the right breast seared, in order that they
may use the arm with ease for all manner of purposes, and particularly
for throwing the javelin. They employ the bow also, and sagaris, (a kind
of sword,) and wear a buckler. They make helmets, and coverings for the
body, and girdles, of the skins of wild animals. They pass two months of
the spring on a neighbouring mountain, which is the boundary between
them and the Gargarenses. The latter also ascend the mountain according
to some ancient custom for the purpose of performing common sacrifices,
and of having intercourse with the women with a view to offspring, in
secret and in darkness, the man with the first woman he meets. When the
women are pregnant they are sent away. The female children that may be
born are retained by the Amazons themselves, but the males are taken to
the Gargarenses to be brought up. The children are distributed among
families, in which the master treats them as his own, it being
impossible to ascertain the contrary.
2. The Mermodas,[965] descending like a torrent from the mountains
through the country of the Amazons, the Siracene, and the intervening
desert, discharges itself into the Mæotis.[966]
It is said that the Gargarenses ascended together with the Amazons from
Themiscyra to these places, that they then separated, and with the
assistance of some Thracians and Eubœans, who had wandered as far as
this country, made war against the Amazons, and at length, upon its
termination, entered into a compact on the conditions above mentioned,
namely, that there should be a companionship only with respect to
offspring, and that they should live each independent of the other.
3. There is a peculiarity in the history of the Amazons. In other
histories the fabulous and the historical parts are kept distinct. For
what is ancient, false, and marvellous is called fable. But history has
truth for its object, whether it be old or new, and it either rejects or
rarely admits the marvellous. But, with regard to the Amazons, the same
facts are related both by modern and by ancient writers; they are
marvellous and exceed belief. For who can believe that an army of women,
or a city, or a nation, could ever subsist without men? and not only
subsist, but make inroads upon the territory of other people, and obtain
possession not only of the places near them, and advance even as far as
the present Ionia, but even despatch an expedition across the sea to
Attica? This is as much as to say that the men of those days were women,
and the women men. But even now the same things are told of the Amazons,
and the peculiarity of their history is increased by the credit which is
given to ancient, in preference to modern, accounts.
4. They are said to have founded cities, and to have given their names
to them, as Ephesus, Smyrna, Cyme, Myrina, besides leaving sepulchres
and other memorials. Themiscyra, the plains about the Thermodon, and the
mountains lying above, are mentioned by all writers as once belonging to
the Amazons, from whence, they say, they were driven out. Where they are
at present few writers undertake to point out, nor do they advance
proofs or probability for what they state; as in the case of Thalestria,
queen of the Amazons, with whom Alexander is said to have had
intercourse in Hyrcania with the hope of having offspring. Writers are
not agreed on this point, and among many who have paid the greatest
regard to truth none mention the circumstance, nor do writers of the
highest credit mention anything of the kind, nor do those who record it
relate the same facts. Cleitarchus says that Thalestria set out from the
Caspian Gates and Thermodon to meet Alexander. Now from the Caspian
Gates to Thermodon are more than 6000 stadia.
5. Stories circulated for the purpose of exalting the fame [of eminent
persons] are not received with equal favour by all; the object of the
inventors was flattery rather than truth; [CAS. 505] they transferred,
for example, the Caucasus to the mountains of India, and to the eastern
sea, which approaches close to them, from the mountains situated above
Colchis, and the Euxine Sea. These are the mountains to which the Greeks
give the name of Caucasus, and are distant more than 30,000 stadia from
India. Here they lay the scene of Prometheus and his chains, for these
were the farthest places towards the east with which the people of those
times were acquainted. The expeditions of Bacchus and of Hercules
against the Indi indicate a mythological story of later date, for
Hercules is said to have released Prometheus a thousand years after he
was first chained to the rock. It was more glorious too for Alexander to
subjugate Asia as far as the mountains of India, than to the recess only
of the Euxine Sea and the Caucasus. The celebrity, and the name of the
mountain, together with the persuasion that Jason and his companions had
accomplished the most distant of all expeditions when they had arrived
in the neighbourhood of the Caucasus, and the tradition that Prometheus
had been chained on Caucasus at the extremity of the earth, induced
writers to suppose that they should gratify the king by transferring the
name of the mountain to India.
6. The highest points of the actual Caucasus are the most southerly, and
lie near Albania, Iberia, the Colchi, and Heniochi. They are inhabited
by the people whom I have mentioned as assembling at Dioscurias. They
resort thither chiefly for the purpose of procuring salt. Of these
tribes some occupy the heights; others live in wooded valleys, and
subsist chiefly on the flesh of wild animals, wild fruits, and milk. The
heights are impassable in winter; in summer they are ascended by
fastening on the feet shoes as wide as drums, made of raw hide, and
furnished with spikes on account of the snow and ice. The natives in
descending with their loads slide down seated upon skins, which is the
practice in Media, Atropatia, and at Mount Masius in Armenia, but there
they fasten circular disks of wood with spikes to the soles of their
feet. Such then is the nature of the heights of Caucasus.
7. On descending to the country lying at the foot of these heights the
climate is more northerly, but milder, for the land below the heights
joins the plains of the Siraces. There are some tribes of Troglodytæ who
inhabit caves on account of the cold. There is plenty[967] of grain to
be had in the country.
Next to the Troglodytæ are Chamæcœtæ,[968] and a tribe called Polyphagi
(the voracious), and the villages of the Eisadici, who are able to
cultivate the ground because they are not altogether exposed to the
north.
8. Immediately afterwards follow shepherd tribes, situated between the
Mæotis and the Caspian Sea, Nabiani, Pangani,[969] the tribes also of
the Siraces and Aorsi.
The Aorsi and Siraces seem to be a fugitive people from parts situated
above. The Aorsi lie more to the north.[970]
Abeacus, king of the Siraces, when Pharnases occupied the Bosporus,
equipped 20,000 horse, and Spadines, king of the Aorsi 200,000, and the
Upper Aorsi even a larger body, for they were masters of a greater
extent of territory, and nearly the largest part of the coast of the
Caspian Sea was under their power. They were thus enabled to transport
on camels the merchandise of India and Babylonia, receiving it from
Armenians and Medes. They wore gold also in their dress in consequence
of their wealth.
The Aorsi live on the banks of the Tanaïs, and the Siraces on those of
Achardeus, which rises in Caucasus, and discharges itself into the
Mæotis.