AMAZONS, in Antiquity, a nation of female warriors, [7:2:588]who founded an empire in Asia Minor, upon the river Thermodoon, along the coasts of the Black Sea. They are said to have formed a state, out of which men were excluded, their commerce with that sex being confined to strangers. They killed all their male children, and cut off the right breasts of their females, to make them more fit for the combat. From the last circumstance they are supposed to derive their name, viz. from the privative α, and μαζο;, mamma, breast. But Bryant, in his Analysis of Ancient Mythology, vol. iii. p. 463, rejects this account as fabulous; and observes that they were in general Cuthite colonies from Egypt and Syria, who formed settlements in different countries, and that they derived their name from zon, the sun, which was the national object of worship.

The Amazons are mentioned by the most ancient of the Greek writers. In the third book of the Iliad, Homer represents Priam speaking of himself as having been present, in the earlier part of his life, in a battle with the Amazons; and some of them afterwards came to the assistance of that prince during the siege of Troy.

The Amazons are particularly mentioned by Herodotus. That historian informs us that the Grecians fought a battle with them on the river Thermodoon, and defeated them. After this victory the Grecians carried off in three ships all the Amazons they had taken prisoners. But while they were out at sea, the Amazons conspired against the men, and killed them all. Having, however, no knowledge of navigation, nor any skill in the use of the rudder, sails, or oars, they were driven by wind and tide till they arrived at the precipices of the lake Maeotis, in the territories of the Scythians. Here the Amazons went ashore, and marching into the country, seized and mounted the first horses they met with, and began to plunder the inhabitants. The Scythians at first conceived them to be men; but after having several skirmishes with them, and taking some prisoners, they discovered them to be women. They were then unwilling to carry on hostilities against them; and by degrees a number of the young Scythians formed connections with them, and were desirous that these gentle dames should live with them as wives, and be incorporated with the rest of the Scythians. The Amazons agreed to continue their connection with their Scythian husbands, but refused to associate with the rest of the inhabitants of the country, and especially with the women. They afterwards prevailed upon their husbands to retire to Sarmatia, where they settled. “Hence,” says Herodotus, “the wives of the Sarmatians still continue their ancient way of living. They hunt on horseback in the company of their husbands, and sometimes alone. They march with their armies, and wear the same dress as the men. The Sarmatians use the Scythian language, but corrupted from the beginning, because the Amazons never learned to speak correctly. Their marriages are attended with this circumstance: no virgin is permitted to marry till she has killed an enemy in the field; so that some always grow old before they can qualify themselves as the law requires.”

Diodorus Siculus says, “There was formerly a nation who dwelt near the river Thermodoon, which was subjected to the government of women, and in which the women, like men, managed all the military affairs. Among these female warriors, it was said, was one who excelled the rest in strength and valour. She assembled together an army of women, whom she trained up in military discipline, and subdued some of the neighbouring nations. Afterwards, having by her valour increased her fame, she led her army against the rest; and being successful, she was so puffed up, that she styled herself the daughter of Mars, and ordered the men to spin wool, and do the work of the women within doors. She also made laws, by which the women were enjoined to go to the wars, and the men to be kept at home in a servile state, and employed in the meanest offices. They also debilitated the arms and thighs of those male children who were born of them that they might be rendered unfit for war. They seared the right breasts of their girls, that they might be no interruption to them in fighting: whence they derived the name of Amazons. Their queen, having become extremely eminent for skill and knowledge in military affairs at length built a large city at the mouth of the river Thermodoon, and adorned it with a magnificent palace. In her enterprises she adhered strictly to military discipline and good order; and she added to her empire all the adjoining nations, even to the river Tanais. Having performed these exploits, she at last ended her days like a hero, falling in a battle, in which she had fought courageously. She was succeeded in the kingdom by her daughter, who imitated the valour of her mother, and in some exploits excelled her. She caused the girls from their very infancy to be exercised in hunting, and to be daily trained up in military exercises. She instituted solemn festivals and sacrifices to Mars and Diana, which were named Tauropoli. She afterwards carried her arms beyond the river Tanais, and subdued all the people of those regions, even unto Thrace. Returning then with a great quantity of spoils into her own kingdom, she caused magnificent temples to be erected to the deities before mentioned; and she gained the love of her subjects by her mild and gentle government. She afterwards undertook an expedition against those who were on the other side of the river, and subjected to her dominion a great part of Asia, extending her arms as far as Syria.”

Diodorus also mentions another race of Amazons who dwelt in Africa, and whom he speaks of as being of greater antiquity than those who lived near the river Thermodoon. “In the western parts of Libya,” says he, “upon the borders of those tracts that are habitable, there was anciently a nation under the government of women, and whose manners and mode of living were altogether different from ours. It was the custom of those women to manage all military affairs; and for a certain time, during which they preserved their virginity, they went out as soldiers into the field. After some years employed in this manner, when the time appointed for this purpose was expired, they associated themselves with men, in order to obtain children. But the magistracy, and all public offices, they kept entirely in their own hands. The men, as the women are with us, were employed in household affairs, submitting themselves wholly to the authority of their wives. They were not permitted to take any part in military affairs, or to have any command, or any public authority, which might have any tendency to encourage them to cast off the yoke of their wives. As soon as any child was born, it was delivered to the father, to be fed with milk, or such other food as was suitable to its age. If females were born, they seared their breasts, that they might not be burdensome to them when they grew up; for they considered them as great obstacles in fighting.

Justin represents the Amazonian republic as having taken its rise in Scythia. The Scythians had a great part of Asia under their dominion upwards of 400 years, till they were conquered by Ninus, the founder of the Assyrian empire. After his death, which happened about 1150 years before the Christian era, and that of Semiramis an their son Ninyas, Ilinus and Scolopites, princes of the royal blood of Scythia, were driven from their country by other princes, who like them aspired to the crown. They [7:2:589] departed with their wives, children, and friends; and being followed by a great number of young people of both sexes, they passed into Asiatic Sarmatia, beyond Mount Caucasus, where they formed an establishment, supplying themselves with the riches they wanted, by making incursions into the countries bordering on the Euxine Sea. The people of those countries, exasperated by the incursions of their new neighbours, having united, surprised and massacred the men.

The women then resolving to revenge their death, and at the same time to provide for their own security, resolved to form a new kind of government, to choose a queen, enact laws, and maintain themselves, without men, even against the men themselves. This design was not so very surprising as at first sight appears: for most of the girls among the Scythians had been inured to the same exercises as the boys; to draw the bow, to throw the javelin, to manage other arms; to riding, hunting, and even the painful labours that seem reserved for men; and many of them among the Sarmatians accompanied the men in war. No sooner had they formed their resolution, than they prepared to execute it, and exercised themselves in all military operations. They soon secured the peaceable possession of the country; and, not content with showing their neighbours that all their efforts to drive them thence or subdue them were ineffectual, they made war upon them, and extended their own frontiers. They had hitherto made use of the instructions and assistance ĵf a few men that remained in the country; but finding it length that they could stand their ground and aggrandize themselves without them, they killed all those whom flight or chance had saved from the fury of the Sarmatians, and for ever renounced marriage, which they now considered as an insupportable slavery. But as they could inly secure the duration of their new kingdom by propagation, they made a law to go every year to the frontiers, ;o invite the men to come to them; to deliver themselves up to their embraces, without choice on their part, or the east attachment; and to leave them as soon as they were pregnant. Those whom age rendered fit for propagation, and who were willing to serve the state by breeding girls, did not all go at the same time in search of men: for in order to obtain a right to promote the multiplication of he species, they must first have contributed to its destruction; nor was any one thought worthy of giving birth to children till she had killed three men.

If from this commerce they brought forth girls, they educated them; but with respect to the boys, if we may believe Justin, they strangled them at the moment of their birth. According to Diodorus Siculus, they twisted their legs and arms, so as to render them unfit for military exercises; but Quintus Curtius, Philostratus, and Jornandes say that the less savage sent them to their fathers. It is probable, that at first, when their fury against the men was carried to the greatest height, they filled the boys; that when this fury abated, and most of he mothers were filled with horror at depriving the little features of the lives they had just received from them, they fulfilled the first duties of a mother; but, to prevent heir causing a revolution in the state, maimed them in such a manner as to render them incapable of war, and employed them in the mean offices which these warlike women thought beneath them: in short, that when their conquests had confirmed their power, their ferocity subsiding, they entered into political engagements with their neighbours; and the number of the males they had preserved becoming burdensome, they, at the desire of those who rendered them pregnant, sent them the boys, and continued still to keep the girls.

As soon as the age of the girls permitted, they took , away the right breast, that they might draw the bow with greater force. The common opinion is, that they burnt that breast, by applying to it, at eight years of age, a hot i brazen instrument, which insensibly dried up the fibres and glands: some think that they did not make use of i so much ceremony, but that when the part was formed they got rid of it by amputation: some again, with much greater probability, assert that they employed no violent measures, but, by a continual compression of that part from infancy, prevented its growth, at least so far as to hinder its ever being incommodious in war.

Plutarch, treating of the Amazons in his life of Theseus, considers the accounts which had been preserved concerning them as partly fabulous and partly true. He gives some account of a battle which had been fought between the Athenians and the Amazons at Athens; and he relates some particulars of this battle which had been recorded by an ancient writer named Clidemus. He says that “the left wing of the Amazons moved towards the place which is yet called Amazonium, and the right to a place called Pnyx, near Chrysa; upon which the Athenians, issuing from behind the temple of the Muses, fell upon them; and that this is true, the graves of those who were slain, to be seen in the streets that lead to the gate Piraica, by the temple of the hero Chalcodon, are a sufficient proof. And here it was that the Athenians were routed, and shamefully turned their backs to women, as far as to the temple of the Furies. But fresh supplies coming in from Palladium, Ardettus, and Lyceum, charged their right wing, and beat them back into their very tents; in which action a great number of the Amazons were slain.” In another place he says, “It appears that the passage of the Amazons through Thessaly was not without opposition; for there are yet to be seen many of their sepulchres near Scotussaea and Cynoscephalae.” And in his life of Pompey, speaking of the Amazons, Plutarch says, “They inhabit those parts of Mount Caucasus that look towards the Hyrcanian Sea, not bordering upon the Albanians, for Gelae and Leges lie between; and with these people do they yearly, for two months only, accompany and cohabit, bed and board, near the river Thermodon. After that they retire to their own habitations, and live alone all the rest of the year.”

Quintus Curtius says, “The nation of the Amazons is situated upon the borders of Hyrcania, inhabiting the plains of Themiscyra, near the river Thermodon. Their queen was named Thalestris, and she had under her subjection all the country that lies between Mount Caucasus and the river Phasis. This queen came out of her dominions in consequence of an ardent desire she had conceived to see Alexander; and being advanced near the place where he was, she previously sent messengers to acquaint him that the queen was come to have the satisfaction of seeing and conversing with him. Having obtained permission to visit him, she advanced with 300 of her Amazons, leaving the rest of her troops behind. As soon as she came within sight of the king, she leaped from her horse, holding two javelins in her right hand. The apparel of the Amazons does not cover all the body, for their left side is naked down to the stomach; nor do the skirts of their garments, which they tie up in a knot, reach below their knees. They preserve their left breast entire, that they may be able to suckle their female offspring; and they cut off and sear their right, that they may draw their bows and cast their darts with the greater ease. Thalestris looked at the king with an undaunted countenance, and narrowly examined his person, which did not, according to her ideas, come up to the fame of [7:2:590] his great exploits; for the barbarians have a great veneration for a majestic person, esteeming those only to be capable of performing great actions on whom nature has conferred a dignified appearance. The king having asked her whether she had any thing to desire of him, she replied, without scruple or hesitation, that she was come with a view to have children by him, she being worthy to bring him heirs to his dominions. Their offspring, if of the female sex, she would retain herself; and if of the male sex, it should be delivered to Alexander. He then asked her, whether she would accompany him in his wars. But this she declined, alleging that she had left nobody to take care of her kingdom. She continued to solicit Alexander that he would not send her back without conforming to her wishes; but it was not till after a delay of 13 days that he complied. She then returned to her own kingdom.”

Justin also repeatedly mentions this visit of Thalestris to Alexander; and in one place he says that she made a march of 25 days in order to obtain this meeting with him. The interview is likewise mentioned by Diodorus Siculus.

The Amazons are represented as being armed with bows and arrows, with javelins, and also with an axe of a particular construction, which was denominated the axe of the Amazons. According to the elder Pliny, this axe was invented by Penthesilea, one of their queens. On many ancient medals are representations of the Amazons armed with these axes. They are also said to have had bucklers in the shape of a half-moon.

That at any period there should have been women who, without the assistance of men, built cities and governed them, raised armies and commanded them, administered public affairs, and extended their dominion by arms, is undoubtedly so contrary to all that we have seen and known of human affairs, as to appear in a very great degree incredible; but that women may have existed sufficiently robust, and sufficiently courageous, to have engaged in warlike enterprises, and even to have been successful in them, is certainly not impossible, however contrary to the usual course of things. That much of what is said of the Amazons is fabulous, there can be no reasonable doubt; but it does not therefore follow that the whole is without foundation. The ancient medals and monuments on which they are represented arc very numerous, as are also the testimonies of ancient writers. It seems not rational to suppose that all this originated in fiction, though it be much blended with it.

Amazonian Habit, in Antiquity, denotes a dress formed in imitation of the Amazons. Marcia, the famous concubine of the emperor Commodus, had the appellation of Amazonian, because she charmed him most in a habit of this kind. Hence also that prince himself engaged in combat in the amphitheatre in an Amazonian habit; and of all titles the Amazonius was one of those in which he most delighted. In honour either of the gallant or his mistress, the month of December was also denominated Amazonius. Some also apply Amazonian habit to the hunting-dress worn by many ladies among us.