216 HISTORY OF GREECE. established habits of critical research on the other, adopted by the historian Arrian, deserves to be transcribed in his own words, as illustrating strikingly the powerful sway of the old legends even over the most positive-minded Greeks : " Neither Aris- tobulus nor Ptolemy (he observes), nor any other competent wit- ness, has recounted this (visit of the Amazons and their queen to Alexander) : nor does it seem to me that the race of the Amazons was preserved down to that time, nor have they been noticed either by any one before Alexander, or by Xenophon, though he mentions both the Phasians and the Kolchians, and the other barbarous nations which the Greeks saw both before and after their arrival at Trapezus, in which marches they must have met with the Amazons, if the latter had been still in exist- ence. Yet it is incredible to me that this race of women, celebra- ted as they have been by authors so many and so commanding, should never have existed at all. The story tells of Herakles, that he set out from Greece and brought back with him the girdle of their queen Hippolyte ; also of Theseus and the Athe- nians, that they were the first who defeated in battle and repel- led these women in their invasion of Europe ; and the combat of the Athenians with the Amazons has been painted by Mikon, not less than that between the Athenians and the Persians. More- over Herodotus has spoken in many places of these women, and those Athenian orators who have pronounced panegyrics on the citizens slain in battle, have dwelt upon the victory over the Amazons as among the most memorable of Athenian exploits. If the satrap of Media sent any equestrian women at all to Alex- ander, I think that they must have come from some of the neigh- boring tribes, practised in riding and equipped in the costume generally called Amazonian." 1 There cannot be a more striking evidence of the indelible force (Julius Caesar said this), magnamque Asise partem Ama'.onas tenuisse quon- dam." In the splendid triumph of the emperor Aurelian at Rome after the defeat of Zenobia, a few Gothic women who had been taken in arms were exhibited among the prisoners ; the official placard carried along with them announ- ced them as Amazons (Vopiscus Aurel. in Histor- August. Scrip, p. 260, ed Paris). 1 Arrian. Expedit. Alexand. vii. 13.
