The Iliad of Homer - Get a Free Blog

114.
appended these lines to his picture
of Helen, as a motto. Valer
Max. iii. 7.
The early epic was largely occupied
with the exploits and
sufferings of women, or
heroines, the wives and daughters
of the Grecian heroes. A
nation of courageous, hardy,
indefatigable women, dwelling
apart from men, permitting
only a short temporary intercourse,
for the purpose of
renovating their numbers,
burning out their right breast
with a view of enabling themselves
to draw the bow freely;
this was at once a general type,
stimulating to the fancy of the
poet, and a theme eminently
popular with his hearers. We
find these warlike females con-