11-09-2006, 07:19 PM
The Romans were forever confusing national/tribal identity among their enemies.
Littleton and Malcor From Scythia to Camelot assert the following (pp 8-10):
The role of women in Scythian society, and the Northeast Iranian society as a whole ... differed markedly from that played by women in the Greco-Roman world .... The Greek legends about Amazons almost certainly derived from their observations of this culture. Scythian wives were expected to fight alongside their husbands when the occasion demanded, and Herodotus went so far as to assert that among their eastern cousins, the 'Sauromatae* ... [there is] a marriage law which forbids a girl to marry until she has killed an enemy in battle."
* Elsewhere (p. 5) Littleton and Malcor speculate that Herodotus' "Sauromatae" were "the immediate ancestors (or earliest known example) of the Sarmations."
Littleton and Malcor also state (p. 161) "The legends of the Amazons developed from observations by Greeks of the female Scythian warriors, e.g., in the writings of Suetonius and Hippoctrates."
Littleton and Malcor From Scythia to Camelot assert the following (pp 8-10):
The role of women in Scythian society, and the Northeast Iranian society as a whole ... differed markedly from that played by women in the Greco-Roman world .... The Greek legends about Amazons almost certainly derived from their observations of this culture. Scythian wives were expected to fight alongside their husbands when the occasion demanded, and Herodotus went so far as to assert that among their eastern cousins, the 'Sauromatae* ... [there is] a marriage law which forbids a girl to marry until she has killed an enemy in battle."
* Elsewhere (p. 5) Littleton and Malcor speculate that Herodotus' "Sauromatae" were "the immediate ancestors (or earliest known example) of the Sarmations."
Littleton and Malcor also state (p. 161) "The legends of the Amazons developed from observations by Greeks of the female Scythian warriors, e.g., in the writings of Suetonius and Hippoctrates."
"Fugit irreparabile tempus" (Irrecoverable time glides away) Virgil
Ron Andrea
Ron Andrea
