Amazons

Or is it plain," he said, "that you mean the Amazons?

And here there came to the Trojans, from Ethiopia Memnon, and the Amazons from Pontus, as helpers, and another multitude of allies, as they learned that Priam and Hector prospered and the Achaeans were all but destroyed—some out of goodwill, some too out of fear of their power;

For Memnon, having great repute, was wounded mortally, and Neoptolemus killed the Amazon, who had run down to the ships too boldly and was trying to burn them, fighting from the ship with a sea-pike;

I was their ally, and with them when the Amazons, peers of men, came up against them, but even they were not so many as the Achaeans.

Thirdly, he killed the Amazons, women who were the peers of men, and as he was returning thence the king devised yet another plan for his destruction;

and to the expedition of the Amazons against Athens and the rape of Helen by Theseus, nine years.

They so prevailed over the invading host of the Amazons as to expel them beyond the Phasis, and the host of Eumolpus and of many another foeman they drove not only out of their own land but also from the lands of all the other Greeks—invaders whom all those dwelling on our front to the westward neither withstood nor possessed the power to halt.

Then he went through the waves of heaving Euxine against the mounted host of Amazons dwelling round Maeotis, the lake that is fed by many a stream, having gathered to his standard all his friends from Hellas, to fetch the gold-embroidered raiment of the warrior queen, a deadly quest for a girdle.

When the Greeks were at war with the Amazons (whom the Scythians call Oiorpata, a name signifying in our tongue killers of men, for in Scythian a man is “oior” and to kill is “pata”), the story runs that after their victory on the Thermodon they sailed away carrying in three ships as many Amazons as they had been able to take alive;

The Amazons landed there, and set out on their journey to the inhabited country, and seizing the first troop of horses they met, they mounted them and raided the Scythian lands.

When the Amazons perceived that the youths meant them no harm, they let them be;

Now if I were to recount the wars of old which they fought against the Amazons or the Thracians or the Peloponnesians who under the leadership of Eurystheus invaded Attica, no doubt I should be thought to speak on matters ancient and remote from the present situation;

This conclusion we may justly draw from the ancient struggles which they carried on against the Amazons and the Thracians and all of the Peloponnesians, and also from the wars which they waged against the Persians, in which, both when they fought alone and when they were aided by the Peloponnesians, whether on land or on the sea, they were victorious over the barbarians and were adjudged the meed of valor;

also by the Scythians, led by the Amazons, the offspring of Ares, who made the expedition to recover Hippolyte, since she had not only broken the laws which were established among them, but had become enamored of Theseus and followed him from her home to Athens and there lived with him as his consort;

At any rate, we are told regarding the Amazons that of all who came not one returned again, while those who had remained at home were expelled from power because of the disaster here;

For while Hellas was still insignificant, our territory was invaded by the Thracians, led by Eumolpus, son of Poseidon, and by the Scythians, led by the Amazons, the daughters of Ares—not at the same time, but during the period when both races were trying to extend their dominion over Europe;

more foul than any Scythian, more unsettled than the wagon-dweller, more inhuman than the Massagetes, more audacious than an Amazon, darker than the fog, colder than winter, more brittle than the ice, more treacherous than the Danube, more precipitous than the Caucasus.