Note 516 — Chapter XI · ATTIC LEGENDS AND GENEALOGIES.

Strabo, xi. p. 503-504; Appian, Bell. Mithridat. c. 103; Plutarch, Pompeius, c. 35. Plin. N. H. vi. 7. Plutarch still retains the old description of Amazons from the mountains near the Thermôdôn. Appian keeps clear of this geographical error, probably copying more exactly the language of Theophanês, who must have been well aware that when Lucullus besieged Themiskyra, he did not find it defended by the Amazons (see Appian, Bell. Mithridat. c. 78). Ptolemy (v. 9) places the Amazons in the imperfectly known regions of Asiatic Sarmatia, north of the Caspian and near the river Rha (Volga). “This fabulous community of women (observes Forbiger, Handbuch der alten Geographie, ii. 77, p. 457) was a phænomenon much too interesting for the geographers easily to relinquish.”