That the Amazons may have been the female fighters of the Scythians really shouldn't
come as a surprise. Virgil states that the "tribes of the Scythians and the Amazons
became one" after warriors from each camped near each other and began meeting in
pairs at night; Virgil may have been in error only in that the two were never
separate. There were not a few American Indian groups in which the women routinely
went to war; besides those for whom the Amazon River is named, the Caddo of what is now Texas boasted many women fighters.
The Amazons of legend - tribes living without men, or tribes where the women
are the fighters and the men the housekeepers - are unlikely to have ever existed
anywhere. Casualties are unavoidable in war, and, while the cost to the future
of a tribe incurred when a male warrior is lost may be slight, the cost involved in
the loss of a female is enormous. An averagely virile male can father at least 300
children a year; for a woman the average is just one.
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