AMAZONS. 
151 
trls, who was obliged to travel so many miles, and encounter so many 
hardships, to procure this interview with the Macedonian prince, and, 
from, the circumstances, is led to consider the whole account as incre- 
dible. But Dr. Petit, with equal erudition, and superior force of rea- 
soning, at length determines that her journey was not founded upon 
irrational principles, and that full credit is due to those historians 
by whom this account has been related* 
The Amazons are represented as being armed with bows and 
arrows, with javelins, and also with an axe of a particular construc- 
tion, which was denominated the axe of the Amazons. According to 
the elder Pliny, this axe was invented by Penthesilea, their queen, 
who went to the Trojan war. On many of the ancient medals are 
representations of the Amazons armed with these axes. They are 
also said to have had bucklers in the shape of a half-moon. The 
Amazons are mentioned by many other ancient authors beside those 
which have been enumerated ; and if any credit be due to the 
accounts concerning them, they subsisted through several ages. 
That at any period there should have been women, who, without 
the assistance of men, built cities and governed them, raised armies 
and commanded them, administered public affairs, and extended their 
dominions by arms, is undoubtedly so contrary to all that we have 
seen and known in public affairs, as to appear in a very great degree 
incredible; but that women may have existed sufficiently robust, and 
sufficiently courageous, to engage in warlike enterprises, and even to 
have been successful in them, is certainly not impossible, however 
eontrary to the usual course of things. In support of this side of 
the question, it may be urged, that women who have been early 
trained to warlike exercises, to hunting, and to a hard and laborious 
mode of jiving, maybe rendered more strong, and capable of more 
vigorous exertions, than men who have led indolent and luxurious 
lives, and who have seldom been exposed even to the inclemencies of 
the weather. The limbs of women, as well as opmen, are strengthened 
and rendered more robust by frequent and laborious exercise. A 
nation of women, therefore, brought up and disciplined as the ancient 
Amazons are represented to have been, would be superior to an 
equal number of effeminate men, though they might be much inferior 
to an equal number of hardy men, trained up and disciplined in the 
same manner. 
That much of what is said of the Amazons is false, there can be 
no reasonable doubt ; but it does not follow that the whole is with- 
out foundation. The ancient medals and monuments on which they 
are represented are very numerous, as are also the testimonies of the 
ancient writers. It seems not rational to suppose that all this origi- 
nated in fiction, though it may be much blended with it. The Abb6 
Guyon speaks of the history of the Amazons as having been regarded 
by many persons as fabulous, “ rather from prejudice than from any 
real and solid examination and it must be acknowledged, that the 
arguments in favour of their existence, from ancient history and 
from ancient monuments, are extremely powerful. The fact seems 
to be, that truth and fiction have been blended in the narrations con- 
cerning these ancient heroines. 
