[510] Pherekydês ap. Schol. Apollôn. Rh. ii. 373-992; Justin, ii. 4; Strabo, xii. p. 547, Θεμίσκυραν, τὸ τῶν Ἀμαζόνων οἰκητήριον; Diodôr. ii. 45-46; Sallust ap. Serv. ad Virgil. Æneid. xi. 659; Pompon. Mela, i. 19; Plin. H. N. vi. 4. The geography of Quintus Curtius (vi. 4) and of Philostratus (Heroic c. 19) is on this point indefinite, and even inconsistent.
[511] Ephor. Fragm. 87, Didot. Strabo, xi. p. 505; xiii p. 573; xiii. p. 622. Pausan. iv. 31, 6; vii. 2. 4. Tacit. Ann. iii. 61. Schol. Apollôn. Rhod. ii. 965.
The derivation of the name Sinopê from an Amazon was given by Hekatæus (Fragm. 352). Themiskyra also had one of the Amazons for its eponymus (Appian, Bell. Mithridat. 78).
Some of the most venerated religious legends at Sinopê were attached to the expedition of Hêraklês against the Amazons: Autolykus, the oracle-giving hero, worshipped with great solemnity even at the time when the town was besieged by Lucullus, was the companion of Hêraclês (Appian, _ib._ c. 83). Even a small mountain village in the territory of Ephesus, called Latoreia, derived its name from one of the Amazons (Athenæ. i. p. 31).
[512] Herodot. iv. 108-117, where he gives the long tale, imagined by the Pontic Greeks, of the origin of the Sarmatian nation. Compare Hippokratês, De Aëre, Locis et Aquis, c. 17; Ephorus, Fragm. 103; Skymn. Chius, v. 102; Plato, Legg. vii. p. 804; Diodôr. ii. 34.
The testimony of Hippokrates certifies the practice of the Sarmatian women to check the growth of the right breast: Τὸν δέξιον δὲ μαζὸν οὐκ ἔχουσιν. Παιδίοισι γὰρ ἐοῦσιν ἔτι νηπίοισιν αἱ μητέρες χαλκεῖον τετεχνήμενον ἐπ᾽ αὐτέῳ τούτῳ διάπυρον ποιέουσαι, πρὸς τὸν μαζὸν τιθέασι τὸν δέξιον· καὶ ἐπικαίεται, ὥστε τὴν αὔξησιν φθείρεσθαι, ἐς δὲ τὸν δέξιον ὦμον καὶ βραχίονα πᾶσαν τὴν ἴσχυν καὶ τὸ πλῆθος ἐκδιδόναι.
Ktêsias also compares a warlike Sakian woman to the Amazons (Fragm. Persic. ii. pp. 221, 449, Bähr).
[513] Pausan. iv. 31, 6; vii. 2, 4. Dionys. Periêgêt. 828.
It is thus that in what is called early Grecian history, as the Greeks themselves looked back upon it, the Amazons were among the most prominent and undisputed personages. Nor will the circumstance 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 Persian 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.[515] 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 rationalized or painted over with historical colors.