AMAZONS AND OTHER SCYTHIAN WARRIORS

Excerpts from: Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus, By Marcus Junianus Justinus, translated, with notes, by the Rev. John Selby Watson. London: Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Convent Garden (1853).

Book II - Account of the Scythians and their actions

In narrating the acts of the Scythians, which were very great and glorious, we must commence from their origin; for they had a rise not less illustrious than their empire; nor were they more famous for the government of their men than for the brave actions of their women. As the men were founders of the Parthians and Bactrians, the women settled the kingdom of the Amazons; so that to those who compare the deeds of their males and females, it is difficult to decide which of the sexes was more distinguished.
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Among the Scythians, in the meantime, two youths of royal extraction, Ylinos and Scolopitus, being driven from their country by a faction of the nobility, took with them a numerous band of young men, and found a settlement on the coast of Cappadocia, near the river Thermodon, occupying the Themiscyrian plains that border on it. Here, making it their practice for several years to rob their neighbours, they were at last, by a combination of the surrounding people, cut to pieces in an ambuscade. Their wives, when they found that to exile was added the loss of their husbands, took arms themselves, and maintained their position, repelling the attacks of their enemies at first, and afterwards assailing them in return. They relinquished all thoughts of marrying with their neighbours, saying that it would be slavery, not matrimony. Venturing to set an example unimitated through all generations, they established their government without the aid of men, and soon maintained their power in defiance of them. And that none of their females might seem more fortunate than others, they put to death all the men who had remained at home. They also took revenge for their husbands that were killed in war, by a great slaughter of their neighbours.

Having thus secured peace by means of their arms, they proceeded, in order that their race might not fail, to form connexions with the men of the adjacent nations. If any male children were born, they put them to death. The girls they bred up to the same mode of life with themselves, not consigning them to idleness, or working in wool, but training them to arms, the management of horses, and hunting; burning their right breasts in infancy, that their use of the bow might not be obstructed by them; and hence they were called Amazons. They had two queens, Marpesia and Lampedo, who, dividing their forces into two bodies (after they were grown famous for their power), conducted their wars, and defended their borders separately and by turns. And that a reason for their success might not be wanting, they spread a report that they were the daughters of Mars.

After subduing the greater part of Europe, they possessed themselves also of some cities in Asia. Having then founded Ephesus and several other towns there, they sent a detachment of their army home, laden with a vast quantity of spoil. The rest, who remained to secure their power in Asia, were cut to pieces, together with their queen Marpesia, by a combination of the barbarous tribes. Orithya, the daughter of Marpesia, succeeded to the government in her room, and has attracted extraordinary admiration, not only for her eminent skill in war, but for having preserved her virginity to the end of her life. So much was added by her valour and conduct to the fame and glory of the Amazons, that the king, for whom Hercules was bound to perform twelve labours, ordered him, as if it were a thing impossible, to bring him the arms of the queen of the Amazons. Hercules. accordingly, having proceeded thither with nine ships of war, the principal young men of Greece accompanying him, attacked the Amazons unawares. Two sisters at this time held the government, Antiope and Orithya; but Orithya was engaged in a war abroad. When Hercules, therefore, landed on the coast of the Amazons, there was but a small number of them there with their queen Antiope, free from all apprehension of hostilities. Hence it happened that a few only, roused by the sudden alarm, took up arms, and these afforded an easy conquest to the enemy. Many were slain, and many taken prisoners; among the latter were two sisters of Antiope, Menalippe being taken by Hercules, and Hippolyte by Theseus. Theseus, having received his prisoner as his share of the spoil, took her to wife, and had by her his son Hippolytus. Hercules, after his victory, restored his captive Menalippe to her sister, receiving the arms of the queen as a recompence; and having thus executed what was imposed on him, he returned to the king.

But Orithya, when she found that war had been made upon her sister, and that the assailant was a chief of the Athenians, exhorted her followers to revenge the affront, saying that the “coast of the Pontus, and Asia, had been conquered in vain, if they were still exposed, not merely to the wars, but to the marauding invasions, of the Greeks.” She then solicited aid from Sagillus, king of Scythia; representing to him “their Scythian descent, the loss of their husbands, their obligation to take arms, and their reasons for making war;” adding, “that they had proved by their valour, that the Scythians must be thought to have women not less spirited than their men.” Sagillus, alive to the glory of his nation, sent his son Panasagoras, with a numerous body of cavalry, to their aid. But some disagreement having occurred before the battle, they were deserted by their auxiliaries, and worsted in the conflict by the Athenians. They had, however, the camp of their allies as a place of refuge, under whose protection they returned to their kingdom unmolested by other nations.

After Orithya, Penthesilea occupied the throne, of whose valour there were seen great proofs among the bravest heroes in the Trojan war, when she led an auxiliary force thither against the Greeks. But Penthesilea being at last killed, and her army destroyed, a few only of the Amazons, who had remained at home in their own country, established a power that continued (defending itself with difficulty against its neighbours), to the time of Alexander the Great. Their queen Minithya, or Thalestris, after obtaining from Alexander the enjoyment of his society for thirteen days, in order to have issue by him, returned into her kingdom, and soon after died, together with the whole name of the Amazons.

The Scythians, in their Asiatic expedition, having been absent from their wives and children eight years, were met on their return home by a war raised by their slaves. For their wives, weary of waiting so long for their husbands, and thinking that they were not detained by war, but had perished in the field, married their slaves that had been left at home to take care of the cattle; who, taking up arms, repelled their masters, returning with victory, from the borders of their country, as if they had been strangers. Success against them being uncertain, the Scythians were advised to change their method of attack, remembering that they were not to fight with soldiers, but with slaves, who were to be conquered, not by means of arms, but of magisterial authority; that whips, not weapons, were to be used in the field; and that, swords being laid aside, rods and scourges, and other instruments of terror to slaves, were to be provided. This suggestion being approved, and all being equipped as was prescribed, the Scythians, as soon as they drew near the enemy, held out scourges towards them unexpectedly, and struck them such terror, that they conquered with the dread of stripes those whom they could not conquer with the sword, and who took to flight, not as defeated enemies, but as fugitive slaves. As many as could be taken, paid the penalty for their rebellion on the cross. The women too, conscious of their ill conduct, put all end to their lives partly by the sword and partly by hanging.

After this occurrence, there was peace among the Scythians till the time of king Jancyrus, on whom Darius, king of Persia, as was said above, made war, because he could not obtain his daughter in marriage. Darius, having entered Scythia with seven hundred thousand armed men, and the enemy allowing him no opportunity of fighting, dreading lest, if the bridge over the Ister were broken down, his retreat should be cut off, hurried back in alarm, with the loss of eighty thousand men; which loss, however, out of so vast a number, was scarcely accounted a disaster. Darius afterwards subdued Asia and Macedonia, and defeated the Ionians in a fight at sea. Then, learning that the Athenians had given aid to the Ionians against him, he turned all his warlike fury upon them.

Since we have now come to the wars of the Athenians, which were carried on, not only beyond expectation as to what could be done, but even beyond belief as to what was done, the efforts of that people having been successful beyond their hopes, the origin of their city must be briefly set forth; for they did not, like other nations, rise to eminence from a mean commencement, but are the only people that can boast, not only of their rise, but also of their birth. It was not a concourse of foreigners, or a rabble of people collected from different parts, that raised their city, but men who were born on the same ground which they inhabit; and the country which is their place of abode, was also their birthplace. It was they who first taught15 the art of working in wool, and the use of oil and wine. They also showed men, who had previously fed on acorns, how to plough and sow. Literature and eloquence, it is certain, and the state of civil discipline which we enjoy, had Athens as their temple. Before Deucalion’s time, they had a king named Cecrops, whom, as all antiquity is full of fables, they represented to have been of both sexes, because he was the first to join male and female in marriage. To him succeeded Cranaus, whose daughter Atthis gave name to the country. After him reigned Amphictyon, who first consecrated the city to Minerva, and gave it the name of Athens. In his days, a deluge swept away the greater part of the inhabitants of Greece. Those only escaped, whom a refuge on the mountains protected, or who went off in ships to Deucalion, king of Thessaly, by whom, from this circumstance, the human race is said to have been restored. The crown then descended, in the course of succession, to Erectheus, in whose reign the sowing of corn was commenced by Triptolemus at Eleusis; in commemoration of which benefit the nights sacred to the mysteries of Ceres were appointed. Aegeus also, the father of Theseus, was king of Athens, from whom Medea divorcing herself, on account of the adult age of her step-son, returned to Colchis with her son Medus, whom she had had by Aegeus. After Aegeus reigned Theseus, and after Theseus his son Demophoon, who afforded aid to the Greeks against the Trojans. Between the Athenians and Dorians there had been animosities of long standing, which the Dorians, intending to revenge in war, consulted the oracle about the event of the contest. The answer was, that the “Dorians would have the advantage, if they did not kill the king of the Athenians.” When they came into the field, the Doric soldiers were charged above all things to take care not to attack the king. At that time the king of the Athenians was Codrus, who, learning the answer of the god and the directions of the enemy, laid aside his royal dress, and entered the camp of the enemy in rags, with a bundle of sticks on his back. Here, among a crowd of people that stood in his way, he was killed by a soldier whom he had purposely wounded with a pruning knife. His body being recognized as that of the king, the Dorians went off without coming to battle; and thus the Athenians, through the bravery of a prince who submitted to death for the safety of his country, were relieved from war.

After Codrus there was no king at Athens; a circumstance which is attributed to the respect paid to his memory. The government of the state was placed in the hands of magistrates elected annually. At this period the people had no laws, for the wills of their princes had always been received instead of laws. Solon, a man of eminent integrity, was in consequence chosen to found the state, as it were afresh, by the establishment of laws. This man acted with such judicious moderation between the commons and the senate (though whatever he proposed in favour of one class, seemed likely to displease the other), that he received equal thanks from both parties. Among many illustrious acts of Solon, the following is eminently worthy of record. A war had been carried on between the Athenians and Megarians, concerning their respective claims to the island of Salamis, almost to the utter destruction of both. After many defeats, it was made a capital offence at Athens to propose a law for the recovery of the island. Solon, anxious lest he should injure his country by keeping silence, or himself by expressing his opinion, pretended to be suddenly seized with madness, under cover of which he might not only say, but do, what was prohibited. In a strange garb, like an insane person, he rushed forth into the public streets, where, having collected a crowd about him, he began, that he might the better conceal his design, to urge the people in verse (which he was unaccustomed to make), to do what was forbidden, and produced such an effect on the minds of all, that war was instantly decreed against the Megarians; and the enemy being defeated, the island became subject to the Athenians.

After a time, the Megarians, cherishing the remembrance of the war made upon them by the Athenians, and fearing that they might be said to have taken up arms to no purpose, went on board a fleet with a design to seize the Athenian matrons as they were celebrating the Eleusinian mysteries during the night. Their intention becoming known, Pisistratus, the Athenian general, placed a body of young men in ambush to receive them, directing the matrons, at the same time, to continue the celebration of the sacred rites with their usual cries and noise, even while the enemy were approaching, in order that they might not know that their coming was expected; and thus attacking the Megarians unawares, just as they were leaving their ships, he put them all to the sword. Immediately after, having taken some women with his men on board the fleet which he had seized, to appear like captured matrons of the Athenians, he set sail for Megara. The Megarians, seeing ships of their own build approaching, apparently with the desired prey on board, went out to the harbour to meet them. Pisistratus cut them to pieces, and almost succeeded in taking their city. Thus the Megarians, having their own stratagem turned against them, afforded their enemies a triumph.

But Pisistratus, as if he had conquered for himself and not for his country, possessed himself of the sovereign authority by a subtle contrivance. Having undergone a voluntary scourging in his own house, he ran out, with his body lacerated, into the open street, and, having summoned an assembly of the people, showed them his wounds, complaining of the cruelty of the great men of the city, from whom he pretended to have received this treatment. Tears were joined to his words, and the credulous mob was easily inflamed by a calumnious speech, in which he affirmed that he had incurred the hatred of the senate by showing his love for the common people. He thus obtained a guard for the protection of his person, by the aid of which he got the sovereign power into his hands, and reigned thirty-three years.

After his death Diocles, one of his sons, having offered violence to a maiden, was slain by her brother. His other son, whose name was Hippias, taking upon him the authority of his father, ordered the murderer of his brother to be apprehended; who, being forced by torture to name those that were privy to the murder, named all the intimate friends of the tyrant. These being put to death, and Hippias asking him “whether any of the guilty still survived,” he replied, that “there was no one surviving whom he should more rejoice to see die than the tyrant himself.” By which answer he proved himself superior to the tyrant, after having avenged, too, the violated honour of his sister.