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Theseus is said to have carried off the queen of the Amazons, Antiope or Hippolyte (cf. iv. 110. 1 n.), from her land, going thither either as a companion of Heracles (Paus. i. 2. 1; Philoch. fr. 49, F.H.G. i. 392; cf. Plut. Thes. 26) or with his friend Pirithous (Pind. fr. 161). The Amazons in revenge invaded Attica and fought long and fiercely with Theseus near the Pnyx and Museum. These daughters of Ares seized the hill of Ares (Aesch. Eum. 688 f.) to attack the Acropolis thence (cf. viii. 52). In that neighbourhood was the Amazoneion (Diodor. iv. 28; Aesch. Eumen. 655 f.) and the graves of the Amazons (Plut. Thes. 27). Graves of Amazons were also to be seen at Cynoscephalae and Scotussa in Thessaly, at Chaeronea in Boeotia, at Chalcis near Megara (Plut. Thes. 27), and at Troezen (Paus. ii. 31. 4, 32. 9).

Amazons are favourite subjects of sculptors and vase-painters. The fight with them was represented by Phidias on the shield of the Parthenos (Paus. i. 17. 2) and on the metopes of the Parthenon, and by Micon in the Stoa Poikile (Paus. i. 15. 2) and the Theseion (Paus. i. 17. 2). It is treated as the mythical counterpart of the Persian invasion.

ἀπὸ Θερμώδοντος: cf. iv. 110. 1.

οὐ τι προέχει, ‘it avails naught.’ The Athenian speaker glides gracefully away from the Trojan war, in which his countrymen played no great part; cf. vii. 161. 3 n.

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