e was extremely distressed, and, in the height of his grief, an oracle
which he had formerly received at Delphi came into his mind; for he had
been commanded by the priestess of Apollo Pythius, that, wherever in a
strange land he was most sorrowful and under the greatest affliction,
he should build a city there, and leave some of his followers to be
governors of the place. For this cause he there founded a city, which
he called, from the name of Apollo, Pythopolis, and, in honor of the
unfortunate youth, he named the river that runs by it Soloon, and left
the two surviving brothers intrusted with the care of the government and
laws, joining with them Hermus, one of the nobility of Athens, from whom
a place in the city is called the House of Hermus; though by an error
in the accent it has been taken for the House of Hermes, or Mercury, and
the honor that was designed to the hero, transferred to the god.

This was the origin and cause of the Amazonian invasion of Attica, which
would seem to have been no slight or womanish enterprise. For it is
impossible that they should have placed their camp in the very city,
and joined battle close by the Pnyx and the hill called Museum, unless,
having first conquered the country round about, they had thus with
impunity advanced to the city. That they made so long a journey by land,
and passed the Cimmerian Bosphorus when frozen, as Hellanicus writes,
is difficult to be believed. That they encamped all but in the city is
certain, and may be sufficiently confirmed by the names that the places
thereabout yet retain, and the graves and the monuments of those that
fell the battle. Both armies being in sight, there was a long pause and
doubt on each side which should give the first onset; at last Theseus,
having sacrificed to Fear, in obedience to the command of an oracle he
had received, gave them battle, in which action a great number of the
Amazons were slain. At length, after four months, a peace was concluded
between them by the mediation of Hippolyta (for so this historian calls
the Amazon whom Theseus married, and not Antiope), though others write
that she was slain with a dart by Molpadia, while fighting by Theseus's
side, and that the pillar which stands by the temple of Olympian Earth
was erected to her honor. Nor is it to be wondered at, that in events
of such antiquity, history should be in disorder. This is as much as is
worth telling concerning the Amazons.

The celebrated fri