d formerly
received at Delphi; that when, in some foreign country, he should
labour under the greatest affliction, he should build a city there,
and leave some of his followers to govern it. Hence, he called the
city which he built Pythopolis, after the Pythian god, and the
neighbouring river, in honour of the young man, Solon. He left the two
surviving brothers to govern it, and give it laws; and along with them
Hermus, who was of one of the best families in Athens. From him the
inhabitants of Pythopolis call a certain place in their city Hermus's
House, and, by exchanging an accent, transfer the honour from the hero
to the god (Mercury). Hence the war with the Amazons took its rise:
and it appears to have been no slight or womanish enterprise, for they
could not have encamped in the town, or joined battle on the ground
about the Pnyx and the Museum, or fallen in so intrepid a manner upon
the city of Athens, unless they had first reduced the country about
it. It is difficult, indeed, to believe (though the story is told by
Hellanicus) that they crossed the Cimmerian Bosphorus upon the ice,
but that they encamped almost in the heart of the city, is confirmed
by the names of places, and by the tombs of those that perished
there." The Amazons, according to fabulous history, were a warlike
race of women, who reared only their female children, and lived as a
nation apart from the male sex. They are said to have founded many
cities in Asia Minor, to have been expert horsewomen, and to have
amputated their left breast the more easily to use their bows. Greek
sculptors delighted to avail themselves of this mythic war between men
and women, in which the heroes do not appear to have used their
weapons lightly, in consideration of the sex of their opponents. The
splendid group by Kiss, casts of which are now in many English homes,
shows that the capacity to deal with the classic subject has not
altogether faded from the world. The Amazons themselves bid fair to
accomplish a resurrection across the Atlantic. Rumours reach us here
in England of female societies associated to make war upon the tyranny
of the opposite sex, and to adopt certain eccentricities of costume.
It is not improbable that these agitators will soon constitute
themselves into a distinct nation, and defy the valour of the
masculine Yankee.

The visitor, on turning, thus far informed, to the slabs upon which
the war with the Amazons is represented, will notice th