BABYLON AND PERSIA

LYDIA AND ASIA MINOR. 20 1temples, with their crowds of ministering women,gave rise to the Greek legend of the Amazons.* Thefabled empire of these much-famed warrior-womenhead-quarters, so to speak, of the legend wasplaced on the banks of the ThermODON, at no verygreat distance from the present ruins of Boghaz-Keui,and we know that the goddess, here named MA, hadone of her principal temples served by no less than6,000 women, in that same neighborhood, at Ko-MANA in Cappadocia, a province which in very olden26. GRANARY IN MODERN LYCIA.times stretched farther towards the Black Sea thanat a later, classical period. The Amazons were saidto have founded cities. Wherever this is the case,we may be sure that ancient Hittite sanctuaries existed.Ephesus, Smyrna, Kyme, and several otherplaces along the Ionian coast come under this head.f9. It is probable that the Hittite rule and culturereached their widest westward expansion soon after* See " Story of Assyria," pp. 30, 36, 2.05, 206, and 360-367.+ See A. II. Sayce's "Ancient Empires of the East," p. 430.