The only meals we are allowed to take in the society of men are on New Year's Day and the king's birthday, and then we are forbidden to speak; indeed it is not thought right for us even to raise our eyes.

How different it is with you! By Mithras! mother, I should like to be an Egyptian, for we poor creatures are in reality nothing but miserable slaves; and yet I feel that the great Cyrus was my father too, and that I am worth quite as much as most men.

Do I not speak the truth?
can I not obey as well as command?
have I not the same thirst and longing for glory?
could not I learn to ride, to string a bow, to fight and swim, if I were taught and inured to such exercises ?" The girl had sprung from her seat while speaking, her eyes flashed and she swung her spindle in the air, quite unconscious that in so doing she was breaking the thread and entangling the flax.
"Remember what is fitting," reminded Kassandane.

"A woman must submit with humility to her quiet destiny, and not aspire to imitate the deeds of men." "But there are women who lead the same lives as men," cried Atossa.
"There are the Amazons who live on the shores of the Thermodon in Themiscyra, and at Comana on the Iris; they have waged great wars, and even to this day wear men's armor." "Who told you this ?" "My old nurse, Stephanion, whom my father brought a captive from Sinope to Pasargadae." "But I can teach you better," said Nitetis.

"It is true that in Themiscyra and Comana there are a number of women who wear soldier's armor; but they are only priestesses, and clothe themselves like the warlike goddess they serve, in order to present to the worshippers a manifestation of the divinity in human form.