Archer
The Archery Library
Old Archery Books, Articles and Prints
homebooksarticlesprintsnews
Home > Books > An Essay on Archery > Notes chapter 4
Notes Chapter 4
48. See Effay, pg, 64. Archaeologia.
49. Virgines in eundem ipfis morem, non otio, neque Ianificio; fed armis, equis, venalionibus exercebant, inuftis infantum dexterioribus mammis, ne fagittarum jactus impediretur ; unde Amazones dictae funt.

Juftin, Ch. IV. lib. II. and
Diod. Siculus, Vol. I. pg. 156.

The derivation of Amazon, from , is by no means agreed upon. This nation is faid to have been a kind of nunnery, wherein a fociety of women lived without intercourfe with other ftates, or with men; and hence the word has admitted another origin, living together, in reference to their feclufion. That a fociety of women fhould exift alone, is impoffible ; but the fact, is, that the women undertook the active labours, whilft the men fubmitted to thofe ufually performed by women. The ancient Egyptians according to Herodotus, had nearly the fame manners ; and we need not pafs our own Chores to fee women engaged in all the toils and labours of agriculture, as well as thofe of domeftic employments, while the men remain idle at home.

This circumftance appears to me more unufual than unnatural; for I cannot avoid being of opinion, that in a ftate of nature, the fexes differ but little in bodily power. It is fo with other animals. The appearances in polifhed fociety will argue nothing contrary to the fuppofition, as habits of inactivity, formed by the force of cuftom, exhibit the abufed, not the cultivated faculties of the human frame. It is with equal propriety that it might be urged, the intellectual faculties of the one fex are inferior to thofe of the other; but there are few at the prefent day who do not perceive, that it is an unjuft, though fafhionable education, which enervates the mental abilities of women, and not the hand of nature. Strength and knowledge are in a great degree artificial.

50.Procopius, pg. 7.—Fol.
51.
Diod. Sic. Lib. 3.
52.

Strabo. Arab. Lib. 16—pg. 772.

Alii tutiore genere, fed magis fallaci, intentos ingen¬tes arcus defigunt humi longius. Hos praecipui viribus juvenes continent: alii connixi pari conatu conten-dunt, ac praetereuntibus fagittarum venabula infigiunt, mox fanguinis veftigiis fequuntur.
Plin. Lib. 8. ch. 8. pg. 439.

53.

Arrian. Rer. Ind. Pg. 541.

54.
Zenophon. Exped. Cyri, p.322. D.
55.

And alfo

Agatharchides — inter Geograph. Script.
minores. Oxon
, 1698. 8vo.

56. The paffage I have quoted above from: Diodorus Siculus, is thus explained by the notes.—"Utebantur enim barbari illi arcubus ternum fere cubitorun; quos ut intenderent, humi collocabant, pedeque admoto fmiftro; nervum fummis viribus adducebant." If the reader be an Archer, I will afk him, How far he ima¬gines a Bow would carry, if placed in the fituation here named ? In my opinion, the Bow would fly as far as the Arrow, but in an oppofite direction !
57. Hollinfhead, vol. iii. pg. 806.
58. This fourth article refts on a very queftionable bafis, as the lines are difputed by the critics; it is intelligible with great difficulty in every fenfe.
59. See Am. Marcel. pg. 320.