AMAZONS, AMAZO'NES. According to a very ancient tradition, the A. were a nation of women, who suffered no men to remain among them, but marched to battle under the command of their queen, and formed for a long time a formidable state. They held occasional intercourse with the men of the neighboring states. If boys were born to them, they either sent them to their fathers, or killed them. But they brought up the girls for war, and burned off their right breasts, that they might not be prevented from bending the bow. From this custom they received the name of A.; that is, " breastless.' Such is the ordinary tale; the origin of which is perhaps to be accounted for by supposing that vague reports, exaggerated and poetically embellished, had reached the Greeks of the peculiar way in which the women of various Caucasian dis tricts lived, performing military duties which elsewhere devolved on husbands, and also of the numerous examples of female heroism which, travelers inform us, still dis tinguish the women of that region. In later times, however, the word Amazon has been supposed to have some connection with the Circassian word Maza,' signifying the moon, as if the myth of the A. had taken its origin in the worship of the moon, which prevailed on the borders of Asia. Three nations of A. have been mentioned by the ancients. 1. The Asiatic A., from whom the others branched off. These dwelt on
the shores of the Black sea, and among the mountains of the Caucasus, especially in the neighborhood of the modern Trebizond, on the river Thermodon (now Term*. They arc said to have at one time subdued the whole of Asia, and to have built Smyrna, Ephesus, Cut me, and other cities. Their queen, Hippolyte, or, according to others, Antiope, was killed by Hercules, as the ninth of the labors imposed on him by Eurystheus consisted in taking from her the shoulder-belt bestowed on her by Mars. On one of their expeditions the A. came to Attica, in the time of Theseus. They also marched under the command of their queen, Penthesilea, to assist Priam against the Greeks. They even appear upon the scene in the time of Alexander the great, when their queen, Thalestris, paid him a visit, in order. to become a mother by the conqueror of Asia. 2. The Scythian A., who, in after-times, married among the neighboring Scythians, and withdrew further into Sarmatia. 3. The African A., who, under the command of their queen, ?tlyrina, subdued the Gorgons and Atlautes, marched through Egypt and Arabia, and founded their capital On the lake Tritonis, but were then anni hilated by Hercules. See Stricker, Die Ainazonen in Sage and Geschichte (Berl. 1873).