The History of Antiquity (Vol. 1-6). Duncker Max

structure consists of Cyclopian blocks of fifteen to twenty feet in length, and some six feet in depth. About thirty chambers, greater or smaller, surround the court of this structure. The ground plan is like that of the palaces of Nineveh; in the sculptures a resemblance has been traced to the reliefs of the buildings of the Achæmenids. Pteria was afterwards the abode of a Persian commander. On the rocky plateau over the palace we see the remains of two citadels, surrounded by lines of fortification, of which the Cyclopian foundations may still be traced.[784] Two miles and a half to the north-west of the ruins of the citadels, in the rocks surrounding the plateau, remarkable sculptures have been discovered. In a deep recess of the rocks the rough walls, which have been but slightly hewn and smoothed, are covered with reliefs. There are two rows of figures which meet each other. They advance from the outer curve of the niche along the side-walls, on the right and left, towards the back wall. While the figures in these rows are only from two to three feet high, the shapes on the back wall, which form the centre of the picture, are of the size of life, and indeed the main figure is even larger. All the figures are in profile. The main figure, which moves from left to right, as does the long row of figures following it on the left side of the niche, is a bearded warrior, who steps over, or even upon, two bending figures with high and pointed caps, falling over in front, and in garments which fall in folds from the girdle. In his right hand he carries a sceptre, the left hand, which is not very distinct, holds a flower out of which peers a circle, or an oval ring. His doublet hardly reaches to the knee; the head is covered with a tall conical cap, and on the feet are pointed shoes. He is followed by two male figures suitably clothed, who stand on mountain summits; then between two winged genii are two figures with round caps, who carry bowls, and behind them a form in a long garment, with a bent staff in his hand, and a winged circle on his head. Then follow warriors armed with sabres, or clubs, in the same short doublet and the same pointed shoes as the three leaders, and between them are two demons, the only figures presenting a full face, with round, broad faces, who carry two segments of a circle, one upon the other. They were followed by warriors and two priests with pointed caps falling over in front. The end of the row on the left entrance is formed by a series of twelve warriors, who march on without armour, close together, and with even step. On the right side of the niche is another row, coming to meet the row described. Opposite the leader of the warriors, in the middle of the north wall, is a large female figure, who advances from the right to the left on a lion or leopard, whose feet rest on four mountain summits. She wears a long robe falling in folds to her ankles; her hair streams down, and upon it is a cylindrical head-dress; the right hand carries a staff, while the left, which holds something similar to the ring already mentioned, is held out towards the outstretched left hand of the leader of the warriors. Behind her, on a smaller scale, but also riding on a lion with the feet resting on mountain summits, is a youthful warrior, without a beard, in the clothing of the main figure; the head is covered with a lofty pointed cap, the shoes are also pointed; in the girdle is the two-edged bill, in the left hand a long battle-axe, and in the right a staff. He is followed by two female figures above a double eagle, in the dress of the main female figure; behind them come thirteen more female figures of a similar kind, with staves or harps in their hands. The whole picture contains more than sixty figures. In a niche receding to the back we find, beside a demon of remarkable shape, a young beardless man with an exceedingly tall conical cap; in his outstretched right hand he appears to carry the picture of a temple; and with his left he embraces the neck of a very youthful female form, whose head-dress and robe fall down in numerous folds. Beside them march twelve warriors with lower caps than those in the main recess, and scythe swords in their right hands; the left arm is raised as high as the shoulder, since they are treading on the left heel, and the top of the right foot.[785]

If this great rock picture is not intended to represent some act of religious worship, it might depict the conclusion of a treaty between two nations. In this case it might belong to the period in which Media, under Cyaxares, extended her borders to the Halys, and came into fierce conflict with the Lydians. This war was brought to an end by a treaty of peace, accompanied by the betrothal of the daughter of Alyattes of Lydia to the son of Cyaxares. The picture might be explained in reference to this treaty and betrothal, did not the style and manner appear closely allied to the figure near Smyrna (p. 151), and a relief not far from Ancyra.[786]

As to the religious rites of the Cappadocians, we know that they worshipped the god Men, who is called a moon-god, and a female deity, Mene, or Ma. On the Lycus, an affluent of the Iris, at Cabeira, stood the sanctuary of Men in the middle of large precincts; the sanctuary of Mene was at Comana, on the Iris, and was the oldest, richest, and most important sanctuary in the land. Ma, or Mene, was a war-goddess whom Greeks and Romans called Enyo and Bellona; to Strabo she is known as Artemis, and this name is evidence of her relation to the moon, no less than of her position as a war-goddess. That relation is confirmed by further evidence. Comana, says Strabo, is thickly populated; but the inhabitants are effeminate; the greater part are fanatics or religious maniacs, and there is also a number of women who serve the goddess with their bodies, of whom the greater part are dedicated to the temple. Here, twice in the year, the "Exodus of the Goddess" was celebrated. To this festival pilgrims, male and female, came from every side, and in frenzy and ecstasy performed certain sacred customs, which consisted partly in wounding themselves with swords, and partly in sensual excesses. In the south of Cappadocia, on the upper Sarus, there was a second city of Comana, which also possessed a sanctuary of Ma. Here, as at Comana on the Iris, six thousand servants are said to have attended upon Ma.[787] We know the tendencies of the Syrian worship, to bring man, by means of certain services, nearer to the deity to whom the services are performed, and make him resemble the peculiar nature of the deity whom he worships. The maidens who served the maiden goddess in her temples on the Pontus carried weapons like the goddess, and honoured her by dancing in armour.

Out of these armed maidens in the temples of Ma there grew up among the Greeks a peculiar and widely-developed legend—the legend of the warlike tribe of the Amazons. When the Greek colonists landed on the western coast of Asia Minor, they found, in the land of the Lydians, where they built Smyrna, Cyme, and Ephesus, seats of the worship of a goddess whom they compared to their Artemis, and whose attendants were eunuchs and armed maidens (p. 556). They next perceived that similar seats of worship were to be found in the East also, on the coasts of the Pontus. Thus the Homeric poems already placed the "Amazons equal to men" on the east of the Phrygians, and represented king Priam as meeting them with his men on the banks of the Sangarius.[788] As natives of Asia Minor the Amazons must have fought with the Trojans against the Greeks. Arctinus represented the Amazons as coming to Troy after the death of Hector, and distressing the Greeks till Achilles slew their queen, the beautiful "Penthesilea, the daughter of the dread, manslaying Ares." The cyclic poets knew the abode of the Amazons more accurately than Homer; they place them at Themiscyra, on the Thermodon;[789] and at this place Pindar represents them as drawing up their army. Æschylus also places the Amazons on the Thermodon;[790] according to Pherecydes the war-god begot the Amazons with Harmonia on the Thermodon.[791] We have seen that the Greeks gave the name Harmonia to Astarte, the moon-goddess of the Phenicians. When the Greeks at the time of Arctinus had founded Sinope and Trapezus in those regions, they believed that they were in the land of the Amazons; and Sinope was thought to have been previously inhabited by the Amazons.[792] The places at which the Greeks here founded a new home were thought to have been named and sanctified long before their arrival, not only by the voyage of the Argonauts, for Heracles, Theseus, and Peirithous were said to have set foot there, in order to perform their mighty deeds against the Amazons. At the command