places the Gelae and Legae between the Albanians and the Amazons.  It is probable that the women of the mountain tribes of the Caucasus sometimes served in the field, and this at least may explain the story here told by Plutarch.  The chief residence of the Amazons is placed in the plains of Themiscyra on the Thermodon in Cappadocia.  Plutarch in his confused notions of geography appears to consider the Thermodon as a Caucasian river.  He also places them near the Leges, a name which resembles that of the Lesghians, one of the present warlike tribes of the Caucasus.  On antient medals the Amazons are represented with a short vest reaching to the knee, and one breast bare.  Their arms were a crescent shield, the bow and arrow, and the double axe, whence the name Amazonia was used as a distinctive appellation for that weapon (Amazonia securis, Horat. Od. iv. 4).]

[Footnote 273:  The Caspian sea or lake was also called the Hyrkanian, from the province of Hyrkania which bordered on the south-east coast.  The first notice of this great lake is in Herodotus (i. 203).]

[Footnote 274:  The Elymaei were mountaineers who occupied the mountainous region between Susiana and Media.  Gordyene was in the most south-eastern part of Armenia.  Tigranocerta was in Gordyene.  Appianus says that in his time Sophene and Gordyene composed the Less Armenia (Mithridatic War, c. 105).  In the territory of Arbela, where the town of Arbil now is, Alexander had defeated Darius, the last king of Persia.]

[Footnote 275:  Another Greek woman, as we may infer from the name.  The story of the surrender of the fort by Stratonike is told by Appianus (Mithridatic War, c. 107) with some additional particulars.  Dion Cassius (37. c. 7) names this fort Symphorium.

The narrative of Plutarch omits many circumstances in the campaigns of Pompeius, which Appianus has described (c. 105, 106) a happening between the arrangement with Tigranes and the surrender of the fort by Stratonike.  Among these events was the war in Judaea and the capture of Jerusalem.  Pompeius entered the Holy of Holies in the Temple, into which only the high priest could enter, and that on certain occasions.  Jerusalem was taken B.C. 63 in the consulship of Cicero.  The events of this campaign are too confused to be reduced into chronological order.  Drumann has attempted it (Geschichte Roms, Pompeii, p. 451, &c.)]

[Footnote 276:  Plutarch means the fort which he has mentioned in the preceding chapter without there giving it a name; the Symphorium of Dion.  It was on the river Lycus, not quite 200 stadia from Cabira (Strabo, 556), and was an impregnable place.]

[Footnote 277:  [Greek:  Hupomnemata]:  probably written in Greek, with which Mithridates was well acquainted.  These valuable memoirs were used by Theophanes in his history of the campaigns of Pompeius.  Theophanes was a native of Mitylene in Lesbos and accompanied Pompeius in several of his campaigns.  He is often mentioned by Cicero (Cicero, Ad Attic., ii. 4, and the notes in the Variorum edition).]