his army further into the east; but that which had most strength was, that Bessus, a most cruel traitor to his master Darius, having at his devotion the Hyrcanians and Bactrians, would in short time (if the Macedonians should return) make himself lord of the Persian empire, and enjoy the fruits of all their former travails. In conclusion, he wan their consents to go on; which done, leaving Craterus with certain regiments of foot, and Amyntas with six thousand horse in Parthenia, he enters, not without some opposition, into Hyrcania; for the Mardons, and other barbarous nations, defended certain passage for a while. He passeth the river of Zioberis, which taking beginning in Parthia dissolves itself in the Caspian sea; it runneth under the ledge of mountains which bound Parthia and Hyrcania, where hiding itself under ground for three hundred furlongs, it then riseth again, and followeth its former course. In Zadracarta, or Zeudracarta, the same city which Ptolomy writes Hyrcania, the metropolis of that region, he rested fifteen days, banqueting and feasting therein.

Phataphernes, one of Darius's greatest commanders, with other of his best followers, submit themselves to Alexander, and were restored to their places and governments. But of all other he graced Artabazus most highly, for his approved and constant faith to his master Darius. Artabazus brought with him ten thousand and five hundred Greeks, the remainder of all those that had served Darius; he treats with Alexander for their pardon before they were yet arrived, but in the end they render themselves simply without promise or composition; he pardons all but the Lacedæmonians, whom he imprisoned, their leader having slain himself. He was also wrought (though to his great dishonour) to receive Nabarzanes, that had joined with Bessus to murder Darius.

SECT. XV.

Of Thalestris, queen of the Amazons, where by way of digression it is shewed that such Amazons have been and are.

HERE it is said that Thalestris, or Minothea, a queen

of the Amazons, came to visit him; and her suit was, (which she easily obtained,) that she might accompany him till she were made with child by him; which done, (refusing to follow him into India,) she returned into her own country.

Plutarch citeth many historians, reporting this meeting of Thalestris with Alexander, and some contradicting it. But indeed the letters of Alexander himself to Antipater, recounting all that befell him in those parts, and yet omitting to make mention of this Amazonian business, may justly breed suspicion of the whole matter as forged. Much more justly may we suspect it as a vain tale, because an historian of the same time reading one of his books to Lysimachus, (then king of Thrace,) who had followed Alexander in all his voyage, was laughed at by the king for inserting such news of the Amazons as Lysimachus himself had never heard of. One that accompanied Alexander took upon him to write his acts, which to amplify, he told how the king had fought single with an elephant, and slain it. The king hearing such stuff, caught the book, and threw it into the river of Indus, saying, that it were well done to throw the writer after it, who, by inserting such fables disparaged the truth of his great exploits. Yet as we believe and know that there are elephants, though it were false that Alexander fought with one; so may we give cre dit unto writers, making mention of such Amazons, whether it were true or false that they met with Alexander, as Plutarch leaves the matter undetermined. Therefore I will here take leave to make digression, as, well to shew the opinions of the ancient historians, cosmographers, and others, as also of some modern discoverers touching these warlike women, because not only Strabo, but many others of these our times make doubt, whether or no there were any such kind of people. m Julius Solinus seats them in the north parts of Asia the Less. Pomp. Mela finds two regions filled with them; the one, on the river Thermodoon, the other near the Caspian sea, n quas, saith he, Solin. c. 27. et 65.

"Ther. 1. 1.

Sauromatidas appellant, "which the people call Sauro"matidas." The former of these two had the Cimmerians for their neighbours: Certum est (saith Vadianus, who hath commented upon Mela) illos proximos Amazonibus fuisse ; "It is certain that the Cimmerians were the next nations to "the Amazons." Ptolomy sets them further into the land northwards, near the mountains Hippaci, not far from the pillars of Alexander. And that they had dominion in Asia itself toward India, Solinus and Pliny tell us, where they governed a people called the Pandeans, or Padeans, so called after Pandea the daughter of Hercules, from whom all the rest derive themselves. P Claudian affirms, that they commanded many nations; for he speaks (largely perhaps as a poet) thus:

Medis levibusque Sabais

Imperat hic sexus: reginarumque sub armis,
Barbariæ pars magna jacet.

Over the Medes and light Sabæans reigns
This female sex, and under arms of queen
Great part of the Barbarian land remains.

9 Diodorus Siculus hath heard of them in Libya, who were more ancient, saith he, than those which kept the banks of Thermodoon, a river falling into the Euxine sea near Heraclium.

Herodotus doth also make report of these Amazons, whom he tells us that the Scythians call Eorpatas, which is as much as Viricidas, or men-killers. And that they made incursion into Asia the Less, sacked Ephesus, and burnt the temple of Diana, Manethon and Aventinus report, which they performed forty years after Troy was taken. At the siege of Troy itself we read of Penthesilea, that she came to the succour of Priamus.

$ Am. Marcellinus gives the cause of their inhabiting upon the river of Thermodoon, speaking confidently of

the wars they made with divers nations, and of their overthrow.

Plutarch, in the Life of Theseus, out of Philochorus, Hellanicus, and other ancient historians, reports the taking of Antiopa queen of the Amazons by Hercules, and by him given to Theseus, though some affirm, that Theseus himself got her by stealth when she came to visit him aboard his ship. But in substance there is little difference, all confessing that such Amazons there were. The same author, in the Life of Pompey, speaks of certain companies of the Amazons, that came to aid the Albanians against the Romans, by whom, after the battle, many targets and buskins of theirs were taken up; and he saith further, that these women entertain the Gelæ and Lelages once a year, nations inhabiting between them and the Albanians.

But to omit the many authors making mention of Amazons that were in the old times, Fran. Lopez, who hath written the navigation of Orellana, which he made down the river of Amazons from Peru in the year 1542, (upon which river, for the divers turnings, he is said to have sailed six thousand miles,) reports from the relation of the said Orellana, to the council of the Indies, that he both saw those women and fought with them, where they sought to impeach his passage towards the east sea.

It is also reported by Ulricus Schmidel, that in the year 1542, when he sailed up the rivers of Paragna and Parabol, that he came to a king of that country called Scherues, inhabiting under the tropic of Capricorn, who gave his captain Ernando Rieffere, a crown of silver, which he had gotten in fight from a queen of the Amazons in those parts.

Ed. Lopes, in his description of the kingdom of Congo, makes relation of such Amazons, telling us, that (agreeable to the reports of elder times) they burn off their right breast, and live apart from men, save at one time of the year, when they feast and accompany them for one month. These, saith he, possess a part of the kingdom of Mono

Hist. Ind. part. 2. c. 28.

motapa in Africa, nineteen degrees to the southward of the line: and that these women are the strongest guards of this emperor, all the East Indian Portugals know.

I have produced these authorities, in part, to justify mine own relation of these Amazons, because that which was delivered me for truth by an ancient cacique of Guiana, how upon the river of Papamena (since the Spanish discoveries called Amazons) that these women still live and govern, was held for a vain and unprobable report.

SECT. XVI.

How Alexander fell into the Persians' luxury; and how he further pursued Bessus.

NOW as Alexander had begun to change his conditions after the taking of Persepolis, so at this time his prosperity had so much overwrought his virtue, as he accounted clemency to be but baseness, and the temperance which he had used all his lifetime but a poor and dejected humour, rather becoming the instructors of his youth, than the condition and state of so mighty a king as the world could not equal. For he persuaded himself that he now represented the greatness of the gods; he was pleased that those that came before him should fall to the ground and adore him; he ware the robes and garments of the Persians, and commanded that his nobility should do the like; he entertained in his court and camp the same shameless rabble of courtesans and Sodomitical eunuchs that Darius had done, and imitated in all things the proud, voluptuous, and detested manners of the Persians, whom, he had vanquished. So licentious is felicity, as notwithstanding that he was fully persuaded, that the gods whom he served (detesting the vices of the invaded) assisted him in all attempts against them, he himself, contrary to the religion he professed, (which, how idolatrous soever it were, could not be but fearful unto him by neglecting it,) became by imitation, and not by ignorance or education, a more foul and fearful monster than Darius, from whose tyranny he vaunted to have delivered so many nations. Yea, those that were dearRALEGH, VOL. III.

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