AMAZONS

Amazons were said to have lived in Pontus, which is part of modern day Turkey near the shore of the Euxine Sea, where day formed ab independent kingdom under the goverment of a queen, often named Hippolyta. They were supposed to have founded many towns, amongs them Smyrna, Ephesus, Sinope, Paphos. According to the dramtist Aeschylus in the distant past they have lived in Scythia at the Palus Maeotis. Herodotus called them Androktones and he started that the in Scythian language they were called Oiorpata, which aslo has this meaning. In some versions, no men were permitted to have sexual encounters or reside in Amazon country; but once a year, in order to provent their race from dying out, they visited the Gargareans, a neighbouring tribe. The made children who were the result of these visit were eigther put to death, sent back to their fathers or left in the wilderness to fend for themeselves; the females were kept and brought up by their mothers, and trainedd in agricultural pursuits, hunting and the art of war.....