The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [139]
22. The two camps were then joined in one, the Amazons living with the Scythians as their wives;
23. And the men were unable to learn the tongue of the women, but the women soon caught up the tongue of the men.
24. When they could thus understand one another, the Scythians addressed the Amazons as follows:
25. ‘We have parents, and properties; let us give up this mode of life, and return to our nation, and live with them.
26. ‘You shall be our wives there no less than here, and we promise you to have no others.’
27. But the Amazons said, ‘We could not live with your women; our customs are quite different from theirs.
28. ‘To draw the bow, to hurl the javelin, to ride the horse, these are our arts; of womanly employments we know nothing.
29. ‘Your women, on the contrary, do none of these things; but stay at home in their waggons, engaged in womanish tasks,
30. ‘And never go out to hunt, or to do anything. We should never agree together. But if you truly wish to keep us as your wives, and would conduct yourselves with strict justice towards us,
31. ‘Go you home to your parents, bid them give you your inheritance, and then come back to us, and let us and you live together by ourselves.’
32. The youths approved this advice, and followed it. They went and got the portion of goods which fell to them, returned with it, and rejoined their wives,
33. Who then addressed them in these words following: ‘We are ashamed, and afraid to live in the country where we now are.
34. ‘Not only have we stolen you from your fathers, but we have damaged Scythia by our ravages.
35. ‘As you like us for wives, grant the request we make of you. Let us leave this country together, and go and dwell beyond the Tanais.’ Again the youths complied.
36. Crossing the Tanais they journeyed eastward a distance of three days’ march from that stream, and again northward a distance of three days’ march from the Palus Maeotis.
37. Here they came to the country where they now live, and took up their abode in it.
38. The women of the Sauromatae have continued from that day to the present to observe their ancient customs,
39. Frequently hunting on horseback with their husbands, sometimes even unaccompanied; in war taking the field; and wearing the same dress as the men.
40. The Sauromatae speak the language of Scythia, but have never talked it correctly, because the Amazons learnt it imperfectly at the first.
41. Their marriage law lays it down that no girl shall wed till she has killed a man in battle.
42. Sometimes it happens that a woman dies unmarried at an advanced age, having never been able in her whole lifetime to fulfil the condition.
Chapter 43
1. The envoys of the Scythians, in the assembly of the kings of the neighbouring nations, told them that the mighty Persian king,
2. After subduing the whole of the Asian continent, had built a bridge over the strait of the Bosphorus, and crossed into Europe,
3. Where he had reduced the Thracians, and was now making a bridge over the Ister, with the aim of bringing under his sway all the rest of Europe also.
4. ‘Do not stand aloof from the great struggle now pending,’ they said, ‘but make common cause with us, and together let us meet the enemy.
5. ‘If you refuse, we must yield to the pressure, and either quit our country or make terms with the invaders. For what else would be left for us to do, if we are without your aid?
6. ‘The blow will not light on you more gently if you do not resist. The Persian comes against you no less than against us:
7. ‘And will not be content, after we are conquered, to leave you in peace. We can bring strong proof of what we here advance.
8. ‘Had the Persian leader indeed come to avenge the wrongs which he suffered at our hands when we enslaved some of his people, and to war on us only,
9. ‘He would have been bound to march straight upon Scythia, without molesting any nation by the way. Then it would have been plain to all that Scythia alone was aimed at.
10. ‘But what has his conduct been? From the