The Origin and Deeds of the Goths | Page 8

rivers into the Caspian Sea--the Araxes, the Cyrus and the
Cambyses. It goes on in continuous range even to the Rhipaeian
mountains. Thence it descends from the north toward the Pontic Sea,
furnishing a boundary to the Scythian tribes by its ridge, and even
touches the waters of the Ister with its clustered hills. Being cut by this
river, it divides, and in Scythia is named Taurus also. Such then is the
great range, 55 almost the mightiest of mountain chains, rearing aloft
its summits and by its natural conformation supplying men with
impregnable strongholds. Here and there it divides where the ridge
breaks apart and leaves a deep gap, thus forming now the Caspian
Gates, and again the Armenian or the Cilician, or of whatever name the
place may be. Yet they are barely passable for a wagon, for both sides
are sharp and steep as well as very high. The range has different names
among various peoples. The Indian calls it Imaus and in another part
Paropamisus. The Parthian calls it first Choatras and afterward
Niphates; the Syrian and Armenian call it Taurus; the Scythian names it
Caucasus and Rhipaeus, and at its end calls it Taurus. Many other tribes
have given names to the range. Now that we have devoted a few words
to describing its extent, let us return to the subject of the Amazons.
[Sidenote: THE AMAZONS]
VIII Fearing their race would fail, they sought marriage 56 with
neighboring tribes. They appointed a day for meeting once in every
year, so that when they should return to the same place on that day in
the following year each mother might give over to the father whatever
male child she had borne, but should herself keep and train for warfare

whatever children of the female sex were born. Or else, as some
maintain, they exposed the males, destroying the life of the ill-fated
child with a hate like that of a stepmother. Among them childbearing
was detested, though everywhere else it is desired. The terror 57 of
their cruelty was increased by common rumor; for what hope, pray,
would there be for a captive, when it was considered wrong to spare
even a son? Hercules, they say, fought against them and overcame
Menalippe, yet more by guile than by valor. Theseus, moreover, took
Hippolyte captive, and of her he begat Hippolytus. And in later times
the Amazons had a queen named Penthesilea, famed in the tales of the
Trojan war. These women are said to have kept their power even to the
time of Aleander the Great.
[Sidenote: REIGN OF TELEFUS AND EURYPYLUS]
IX But say not "Why does a story which deals with 58 the men of the
Goths have so much to say of their women?" Hear, then, the tale of the
famous and glorious valor of the men. Now Dio, the historian and
diligent investigator of ancient times, who gave to his work the title
"Getica" (and the Getae we have proved in a previous passage to be
Goths, on the testimony of Orosius Paulus)--this Dio, I say, makes
mention of a later king of theirs named Telefus. Let no one say that this
name is quite foreign to the Gothic tongue, and let no one who is
ignorant cavil at the fact that the tribes of men make use of many
names, even as the Romans borrow from the Macedonians, the Greeks
from the Romans, the Sarmatians from the Germans, and the Goths
frequently from the Huns. This Telefus, then, a son of Hercules by 59
Auge, and the husband of a sister of Priam, was of towering stature and
terrible strength. He matched his father's valor by virtues of his own
and also recalled the traits of Hercules by his likeness in appearance.
Our ancestors called his kingdom Moesia. This province has on the east
the mouths of the Danube, on the south Macedonia, on the west Histria
and on the north the Danube. Now this king we have mentioned carried
on 60 wars with the Greeks, and in their course he slew in battle
Thesander, the leader of Greece. But while he was making a hostile
attack upon Ajax and was pursuing Ulysses, his horse became
entangled in some vines and fell. He himself was thrown and wounded

in the thigh by a javelin of Achilles, so that for a long time he could not
be healed. Yet, despite his wound, he drove the Greeks from his land.
Now when Telefus died, his son Eurypylus succeeded to the throne,
being a son of the sister of Priam, king of the Phrygians. For love of
Cassandra he sought to take part in the Trojan war, that he might come
to the help of her parents and his own father-in-law; but soon after his