Zitat von
8.3.5
The Huns who are called Sabiri dwell in that region, as well as certain other Hunnic tribes. And they say that the Amazons really originated here and afterwards established their camp near Themiscyra on the Thermodon River, as I have stated above, at the place where the city of Amisus is at the present time. But to-day nowhere in the vicinity of the Caucasus range is any memory of the Amazons preserved or any name connected with them, although much has been written about them both by Strabo and by some others. But it seems to me that those have spoken the truth about the Amazons at any rate better than any others, who have stated that there never was a race of women endowed with the qualities of men and that human nature did not depart from its established norm in the mountains of the Caucasus alone; but the fact was that barbarians from these regions together with their own women made an invasion of Asia with a great army, established a camp at the river Thermodon, and left their women there; then, while they themselves were overrunning the greater part of the land of Asia, they were encountered by the inhabitants of the land and utterly destroyed, and not a man of them returned to the women's encampment; and thereafter these women, through fear of the people dwelling round about and constrained by the failure of their supplies, put on manly valour, not at all of their own will, and, taking up the equipment of arms and armour left by the men in the camp and arming themselves in excellent fashion with this, they made a display of manly valour, being driven to do so by sheer necessity, until they were all destroyed. That this is about what happened and that the Amazons did make an expedition with their husbands, I too believe, basing my judgment on what has actually taken place in my time. For customs which are handed down to remote descendants give a picture of the character of former generations. I mean this, that on many occasions when Huns have made raids into the Roman domain and have engaged in battle with those who encountered them, some, of course, have fallen there, and after the departure of the barbarians the Romans, in searching the bodies of the fallen have actually found women among them. No other army of women, however, has made its appearance in any locality of Asia or Europe. On the other hand, we have no tradition that the mountains of the Caucasus were ever devoid of men. Concerning the Amazons then let this suffice.