Encyclopaedia Britannica, or, a Dictionary of arts, sciences, and miscellaneous literature : enlarged and improved. Illustrated with nearly six hundred engravings > Volume 1, A-AME

Amazons.
A M A [
f:iys he, “ upon the borders ot thofe Ir.tcls that are
habitable, there was anciently a nation under the go¬
vernment of women, and whole manners and mode of
living were altogether different from ours. It was the
cuftom of thofe women to manage all military allairs •,
and for a certain time, during which they preferved
their virginity, they went out as loldiers into the field.
After fome years employed in this manner, when the
time appointed for this purpofe was expired, they affo-
ciated themfelves with men, in order to obtain children.
But the magiftracy, and all public offices, they kept
entirely in their own hands. The men, as the women
are with us, w:ere employed in houfehold afiairs, fub-
mitting themlelves wholly to the authority of then
wives. They were not permitted to take any part in
military affairs, or to have any command, or any pu¬
blic authority, which might have any tendency to en¬
courage them to call off the yoke of their wives. As
loon as any child was born, it, was delivered to the fa¬
ther, to be fed with milk, or inch other food as was
fuitable to its age. If females were born, they feared
their breafts, that they might not be burdenfome to
them when they grew up •, for they confidered them as
great hinderances in fighting.
Juflin reprefents the Amazonian republic to have
taken its rife in Scythia. The Scythians had a great
part of Afia under their dominion upwards of 400
years, till they were conquered by Ninus, the founder
of the Affyrian empire. After his death, which hap¬
pened about 1150 years before the Chriflian era, and
that of Semrramis and their fon Ninyas, Ilinus and Sco-
lopites, princes of the royal blood oi Scythia, Avere dn-
ven from their country by other princes, avIio like them
afpired to the crown. They departed with their wives,
children, and friends •, and being folloAved by a great
number of young people of both Texes,, they paffed into
Afiatic Sarmatia, beyond Mount Camaffus, Avhere they
formed an ellablifhment, fupplying themfelves with the
riches they wanted, by making incurfions hi to the coun¬
tries bordering on the Euxine lea. Ihe people of
thofe countries, exafperated by the incurlions of then
new neighbours, united, furpnied, and mailacred the
men. ,
The women then refolving to revenge their death,
and at the fame time to provide for their oavh fecurity,
refolved to form a new kind of government, to choofe
a queen, enact laivs, and maintain themfelves, Avithout
men, even againfl the men themfeWes. This defign
was not fo very furprifing as at firfl fight appears : for
the greateft number of the girls among the Scythians
had been inured to the fame exercifes as the boys, to
draiv the boiv, to thrmv the javelin, to manage other
arms ; to riding, hunting, and even the painful labours
that feem referved for men ; and many of them, among
the Sarmatians, accompanied the men in Avar. Hence
they had no fooner formed their refolution, than they
prepared to execute it, and exercifed themlelves in
all military operations. They loon fecured the peace¬
able pofieflion of the country 5 and not content Avith
fliowing their neighbours that all their efforts to drive
them thence or fubdue them Avere ineffedtual, they
made war upon them, and extended their OAvn fron¬
tiers. They had hitherto made ufe of the inflrudtions
and afliflance of a Fcav men that remained in the coun¬
try ; but finding at length that they could Hand their
o ] AM A
ground, and aggrandize themfelves, without them, they Amezons,.
killed all thofe whom flight or chance had laved from v—-v—
the fury of the Sarmatians, and for ever renounced mar¬
riage, which they noAV confidered as an infuppoytable
flavery. But as'they could only fecure the duration of
their neAV kingdom by propagation, they made a hiA\ to
go every year to the frontiers, to invite the men to
come to them j to deliver themlelves up to their em¬
braces, without choice on their part, or the leall attach¬
ment; and to leave them as foon as they were pregnant.
All thofe whom age rendered fit for propagation, and
were willing to ferve the Hate by breeding girls, did not
go at the fame time in fearch ot men: for in order to
obtain a right to promote the multiplication of the fpe-
cies, thev mull firfl have contributed to its defliudlion;
nor was any thought worthy of giving birth to childrca
till Ihe had killed three men. „
If from this commerce they brought forth gills, they
educated them ; but with refpeft to the boys, if we
may believe Jullin, they firangled them at the moment
of their birth : according to Diodorus Siculus, they
twilled their legs and arms, io as to render them uimt
for military exercifes j but Quintus Curtins, I Liloura-
tus, and Jordarus fay, that the lefs lavage lent them
to their fathers. It is probable, that at firfl, when
their fury againfl the men was carried to the great-
eft height, they killed the boys ; that when this fury
abated, and moll of the mothers were filled with hor¬
ror at depriving the little creatures of the fives the}
had juft received from them, they fulfilled the full du¬
ties of a mother ; but to prevent their caufing a revo¬
lution in the ftate, maimed them in inch a manner as
to render them incapable of war, and employed them
in the mean offices which thefe warlike women thought
beneath them. In fliort, that, when their conquefts
had confirmed their power, their ferocity fubfiding,
they entered into political engagements with their
neighbours ; and the number of the males they had pre¬
ferved becoming burdenfome, they, at the defire of thorn
who rendered them pregnant, lent them the boys, and .
continued ftill to keep the girls. .
As foon as the age of the girls permitted, they took
away the right breaft, that they might draw the bow
with' the greater force. The common opinion is, that
they burnt that breaft, by applying to it, at eight years
of age, a hot brazen inftrument, Ayhich inleniibly dried
up the fibres and glands ; lome think that they did not
make ufe of fo much ceremony, but that when the part
was formed, they got rid of it by amputation : iome
ao-ain, with much greater probability, aflert, that they
employed no violent meafures ; but, by a continual com-
preffion of that part from infancy, prevented its growth,
at leaft fo far as to hinder its ever being incommodious
Plutarch, treating of the Amazons in bis life 01 The-
feus, confiders the accounts which had been preierved
concerning them as partly fabulous, and partly true.
He gives fome account of a battle, which had been
fought between the Athenians and the Amazons at A-
thens; and he relates fome particulars of this battle
which had been recorded by an ancient writer named
Clidemus. He fays, “ That the left wing of the A-
mazons moved towards the place which ^ yet calle
Amazonium, and the right to a place called Iryx> >‘C«r
Chryfa ; upon which the Athenians, illuing h'om^'