Book 11
5.2
The MermodasApparently the same river as that called Mermadalis in the preceding paragraph. dashes down from the mountains through the country of the Amazons and through Siracene and the intervening desert and then empties into Lake Maeotis. It is said that the Gargarians went up from Themiscyra into this region with the Amazons, then revolted from them and in company with some Thracians and Euboeans who had wandered thus far carried on war against them, and that they later ended the war against them and made a compact on the conditions above-mentioned, that is, that they should have dealings with one another only in the matter of children, and that each people should live independent of the other.
5.3
A peculiar thing has happened in the case of the account we have of the Amazons; for our accounts of other peoples keep a distinction between the mythical and the historical elements; for the things that are ancient and false and monstrous are called myths, but history wishes for the truth, whether ancient or recent, and contains no monstrous element, or else only rarely. But as regards the Amazons, the same stories are told now as in early times, though they are marvellous and beyond belief. For instance, who could believe that an army of women, or a city, or a tribe, could ever be organized without men, and not only be organized, but even make inroads upon the territory of other people, and not only overpower the peoples near them to the extent of advancing as far as what is now Ionia, but even send an expedition across the sea as far as Attica? For this is the same as saying that the men of those times were women and that the women were men. Nevertheless, even at the present time these very stories are told about the Amazons, and they intensify the peculiarity above-mentioned and our belief in the ancient accounts rather than those of the present time.
