AMAZON
WOMEN WARRIORS PART - 1
Note
: This article has multiple issues.
Wounded
Amazon of the Capitoline Museums, Rome
In
Greek mythology, the Amazons (Ancient Greek: Amazónes) were
a tribe of warrior women believed to live in Asia Minor. Apollonius
Rhodius, in his Argonautica, mentions that the Amazons were the
daughters of Ares and Harmonia (a nymph of the Akmonian Wood), that
they were brutal and aggressive, and their main concern in life
was war. Lysias, Isocrates, Philostratus the Elder also said that
their father was Ares.
Herodotus
and Strabo place them on the banks of the Thermodon River. According
to Diodorus, giving the account of Dionysius of Mitylene (who in
turn drew on Thymoetas), the Amazons inhabited Ancient Libya long
before they settled along the Thermodon. Migrating from Libya, these
Amazons passed through Egypt and Syria, and stopped at the Caïcus
in Aeolis, near which they founded several cities. Later, Diodorus
maintains, they established Mytilene a little way beyond the Caïcus.
Aeschylus, in Prometheus Bound, places the original home of the
Amazons in the country about Lake Maeotis, and from which they moved
to Themiscyra on the Thermodon. Homer tells that the Amazons were
sought and found somewhere near Lycia.
![](AmazonBattle.jpg)
Amazon
preparing for a battle (Queen Antiop or Armed Venus), by Pierre-Eugène-Emile
Hébert, 1860, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Notable
queens of the Amazons are Penthesilea, who participated in the Trojan
War, and her sister Hippolyta, whose magical girdle, given to her
by her father Ares, was the object of one of the labours of Heracles.
The Amazons fought on the side of Troy against the Greeks during
the Trojan War. Diodorus mentions that the Amazons traveled from
Libya under Queen Myrina. Amazon warriors were often depicted in
battle with Greek warriors in amazonomachies in classical art. Archaeological
discoveries of burial sites with female warriors on the Eurasian
Steppes suggest that the Scythian women may have inspired the Amazon
myth. From the early modern period, their name has become a term
for female warriors in general. Amazons were said to have founded
the cities and temples of Smyrna, Sinope, Cyme, Gryne, Ephesus,
Pitania, Magnesia, Clete, Pygela, Latoreria and Amastris; according
to legend, the Amazons also invented the cavalry.
Palaephatus,
who was trying to rationalize the Greek myths in his On Unbelievable
Tales, wrote that the Amazons were probably men who were mistaken
for women by their enemies because they wore clothing which reached
their feet, tied up their hair in headbands and shaved their beards,
and in addition, because they did not exist during his time, most
probably they did n?t exist in the past either. In 2019 a grave
with Amazons in golden royal crowns was found near Russia's Voronezh.
Etymology
:
![](DepartureoftheAmazonsMETDP318355.jpg)
Departure
of the Amazons, by Claude Deruet, 1620, Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York
The
origin of the word is uncertain. It may be derived from an Iranian
ethnonym *ha-mazan- "warriors", a word attested indirectly
through a derivation, a denominal verb in Hesychius of Alexandria's
gloss ("hamazakaran: 'to make war' in Persian"), where
it appears together with the Indo-Iranian root *kar- "make".
It
may also be derived from "manless, without husbands" (a-
privative and a derivation of *man- also found in Slavic muzh) has
been proposed, an explanation deemed "unlikely" by Hjalmar
Frisk. A further explanation proposes Iranian *ama-janah "virility-killing"
as source.
The
Hittite researcher Friedrich Cornelius assumes that there had been
the land Azzi with the capital Chajasa in the area of the Thermodon-Iris
Delta on the coast of the Black Sea. He brings its residents in
direct relation to the Amazons, namely based on its name (woman
of the land Azzi = 'Am'+ 'Azzi' = Amazon) and its customs (matriarchal
custom of promiscuous sexual intercourse, even with blood relatives).
The location of that land as well as his conclusions are controversial.
—
Gerhard Pollauer [self-published source]
Among Classical Greeks, amazon was given a folk etymology as originating
from a- (?-) and mazos, "without breast", connected with
an etiological tradition once claimed by Marcus Justinus who alleged
that Amazons had their right breast cut off or burnt out. There
is no indication of such a practice in ancient works of art, in
which the Amazons are always represented with both breasts, although
one is frequently covered. Adrienne Mayor suggests that the false
etymology led to the myth.
Origins
:
![](AmazontrousersBMVaseB673.jpg)
Amazon
wearing trousers and carrying a shield with an attached patterned
cloth and a quiver. Ancient Greek Attic white-ground alabastron,
c.470 BC, British Museum, London
Herodotus
and Strabo placed the Amazons on the banks of the Thermodon (today's
Terme river) and Themiscyra (probably close to the modern city of
Terme). Herodotus also mentions that some Amazons lived in Scythia
because after the Greeks defeated the Amazons in battle, they sailed
away carrying in three ships as many Amazons as they had been able
to take alive, but out at sea the Amazons attacked the crews and
killed them, then these Amazons landed on Scythian lands. Strabo
writes that the original home of the Amazons was in Themiscyra and
the plains about Thermodon and the mountains that lie above them,
but that they were later driven out of these places, and during
his time they were said to live in the mountains above Caucasian
Albania (not to be confused with the modern Albania). But he also
states that some others, among them Metrodorus of Scepsis and Hypsicrates,
say that after Themiscyra, the Amazons traveled and lived on the
borders of the Gargarians, in the northerly foothills of those parts
of the Caucasian Mountains which are called Ceraunian.
Aeschylus,
in Prometheus Bound, places the original home of the Amazons in
the country about Lake Maeotis and they later moved to Themiscyra
on the Thermodon. Homer had placed the Amazons much closer to the
Greek world of his times, saying that the Amazons were sought and
found somewhere near Lycia.
Diodorus
Siculus, giving the account of Dionysius of Mitylene, who, on his
part, drew on Thymoetas, states that before the Amazons of the Thermodon
there were, much earlier in time, the Amazons of Libya. These Amazons
started from Libya passed through Egypt and Syria, and stopped at
the Caïcus in Aeolis, near which they founded several cities.
Later, he says, they established Mitylene a little way beyond the
Caïcus.
Plutarch
mentions that the campaigns of Heracles and Theseus against the
Amazons took place on the Euxine Sea (the modern Black Sea). According
to Pseudo-Plutarch, the Amazons lived in and about the Tanais river
(modern Don river), formerly called the Amazonian or Amazon river,
because the Amazons bathed themselves therein. The Amazons later
moved to Themiscyra (speculated to be modern Terme, though no ruins
exist) on the River Thermodon (the Terme river in northern Turkey).
The
Amazons were supposed to have founded many towns, amongst them Smyrna,
Ephesus, Cyme, Myrina, Sinope, Paphos, Mitylene. At Patmos there
was a place called Amazonium. Also, on the island of Lemnos, there
was another Myrina. The cities of Myrina had this name after the
amazon Myrina.
Apollonius
Rhodius, in his Argonautica (third century BC), mentions that at
Thermodon the Amazons were not gathered together in one city, but
scattered over the land, parted into three tribes. In one part dwelt
the Themiscyreians, in another the Lycastians, and in another the
Chadesians.
Other
names :
Greeks
also used other descriptive phrases for them. Herodotus used the
Androktones (Androktona) ("killers/slayers of men") and
Androleteirai (Androleteira) ("destroyers of men, murderesses"),
in the Iliad they are also called Antianeirai (Antianeira) ("equivalent
to men") and Aeschylus used the Styganor ("those who loathe
all men") in his work Prometheus Bound and in the Suppliant
Maidens he called them ("the unwed, flesh-devouring Amazons").
In Hippolytus play, Phaedra calls Hippolytus, "the son of the
horse-loving Amazon". Nonnus at Dionysiaca call the Amazons
of Dionysus, Androphonus ("men slaying").
Herodotus
stated that in the Scythian language they were called Oiorpata,
oior meaning "man", and pata meaning "to slay".
Historical
background :
Classicist Peter Walcot wrote, "Wherever the Amazons are located
by the Greeks, whether it is somewhere along the Black Sea in the
distant north-east, or in Libya in the furthest south, it is always
beyond the confines of the civilized world. The Amazons exist outside
the range of normal human experience."
Nevertheless,
there are various proposals for a historical nucleus of the Amazons
of Greek historiography, the most obvious candidates being historical
Scythia and Sarmatia in line with the account by Herodotus, but
some authors prefer a comparison to cultures of Asia Minor or even
Minoan Crete.
Mythology
:
The Amazons and Troy :
The
Amazons appear in Greek art of the Archaic period and in connection
with several Greek legends and myths. According to the Iliad, Amazons
attacked the Phrygians, who were assisted by Priam, then a young
man. In his later years, however, towards the end of the Trojan
War, his old opponents took his side against the Greeks under their
queen Penthesilea "of Thracian birth", who was slain by
Achilles. The Lycian King Iobates sent Bellerophon against the Amazons,
hoping that they would kill him, but Bellerophon killed them all.
The
Amazons appear in Greek art of the Archaic period and in connection
with several Greek legends and myths. According to the Iliad, Amazons
attacked the Phrygians, who were assisted by Priam, then a young
man. In his later years, however, towards the end of the Trojan
War, his old opponents took his side against the Greeks under their
queen Penthesilea "of Thracian birth", who was slain by
Achilles. The Lycian King Iobates sent Bellerophon against the Amazons,
hoping that they would kill him, but Bellerophon killed them all.
The
tomb of Myrine is mentioned in the Iliad; later interpretation made
an Amazon of her. According to Diodorus, the Amazons under the rule
of Queen Myrina, invaded the lands of the Atlantians. Amazons defeated
the army of the Atlantian city of Cerne, treated the captives savagely,
killed all the men, led into slavery the children and women, and
razed the city. When the terrible fate of the inhabitants of Cerne
became known among the other Atlantians, they were struck with terror,
surrendered their cities on terms of capitulation and announced
that they would do whatever should be commanded them. Queen Myrina
bearing herself honourably towards the Atlantians, established friendship
with them and founded a city to bear her name in place of the city
of Cerne which had been razed; and in it she settled both the captives
and any native who so desired. Atlantians presented her with magnificent
presents and by public decree voted to her notable honours, and
she in return accepted their courtesy and in addition promised that
she would show kindness to their nation. Diodorus also mentions
that the Amazons of Queen Myrina used the skins of gigantic snakes,
from Libya, to protect themselves at battle. Later Queen Myrine
led her Amazons to victory against the Gorgons. After the battle
against the Gorgons, Myrina accorded a funeral to her fallen comrades
on three pyres and raised up three great heaps of earth as tombs,
which are called "Amazon Mounds".
Dealings
with the Scythians :
Herodotus
mentions that when Greeks defeated the Amazons at war, they sailed
away carrying in three ships as many Amazons as they had been able
to take alive, out at sea the Amazons attacked the crews and killed
them. But the Amazons knew nothing about ships so they were driven
about by waves and winds and they were disembarked at the land of
the Scythians. There they met first with a troop of horses feeding,
they seized them and mounted upon these they plundered the property
of the Scythians. The Scythians were not able to understand them
because they did not know either their speech or their dress or
the race to which they belonged, and they thought that they were
men. Scythians fought a battle against them, and after the battle
the Scythians got possession of the bodies of the dead, and thus
they discovered that they were women. After the battle Scythians
sent young men and told them to encamp near the Amazons and to do
whatsoever they should do. If the women should come after them,
they were not to fight but to retire before them, and when the women
stopped, they were to approach near and encamp.
This
plan was adopted by the Scythians because they desired to have children
born from them. When the Amazons perceived that they had not come
to do them any harm, they let them alone; and the two camps approached
nearer to one another every day: and the young men, like the Amazons,
had nothing except their arms and their horses and got their living,
as the Amazons did, by hunting and by taking booty. One day a Scythian
and an Amazon came close. They could not speak to each other because
they were speaking different languages, but the Amazon made signs
to him with her hand to come. Later the young Scythians and the
Amazons joined their camps and lived together, each man having for
his wife her with whom he had had dealings at first. The men were
not able to learn the language of the Amazons, but the women learned
Scythian.
The
Amazons in their homeland :
In some versions of the myth, the Amazons lived always isolated
from men, communicating with them only to reproduce, and raising
only female offspring. As Sue Blundell notes in her modern work,
Women in Ancient Greece, "For... [some] ancient authors the
Amazons, in spite of their separatist habits, were not immune to
the lure of sexual desire", and went on to cite a story from
Herodotus. The article on the Amazons in the 1911 Encyclopædia
Britannica argues—based on the evidence available at that
time—that while men were not permitted to have sexual encounters
or reside in Amazon country, the Amazons visited the Gargareans,
a neighbouring tribe, once a year, in order to prevent their race
from dying out. Strabo, giving credits to Metrodorus of Scepsis
and Hypsicrates, mentions that at his time the Amazons were believed
to live on the borders of the Gargareans. There were two special
months in the spring in which they would go up into the neighboring
mountain which separates them and the Gargareans. The Gargareans
also, in accordance with an ancient custom, would go there to offer
sacrifice with the Amazons and also to have intercourse with them
for the sake of begetting children. They did this in secrecy and
darkness, any Gargareans at random with any Amazon, and after making
them pregnant they would send them away. Any females that were born
are retained by the Amazons themselves, but the males would be taken
to the Gargareans to be brought up; and each Gargarean to whom a
child is brought would adopt the child as his own, regarding the
child as his son because of his uncertainty.
Strabo
also stated that the Gargareans went up from Themiscyra into this
region with the Amazons, then, in company with some Thracians and
Euboeans who had wandered thus far, waged war against them. They
later ended the war against the Amazons and made a compact that
they should have dealings with one another only in the matter of
children, and that each people should live independent of the other.
In addition, he states that the right breasts of all Amazons are
seared when they are infants, so that they can easily use their
right arm for every needed purpose, and especially that of throwing
the javelin and using the bow.
Apollonius
Rhodius, in his Argonautica, mentions that Amazons were the daughters
of Ares and Harmonia (a nymph of the Akmonian Wood). They were brutal
and aggressive, and their main concern in life was war. According
to him, the Amazons were not gathered together in one city, but
scattered over the land, parted into three tribes. In one part dwelt
the Themiscyreians, in another the Lycastians, and in another the
Chadesians. Also, he mentions that on an island, the Queens of the
Amazons, Otrere and Antiope, built a marble temple to Ares. On this
desert island there were ravening birds, which in countless numbers
haunt it. The island mentioned is the Aretias. Argonauts passed
by Themiscyra on their journey to Colchis. Zeus sent Boreas (the
North Wind), and with his help the Argonauts stood out from the
shore near Themiscyra where the Themiscyreian Amazons were arming
for battle.
Battles
with Hercules and Theseus, dealings with Alexander the Great :
One of the tasks imposed upon Hercules by the king of Tyrins, Eurystheus,
was to obtain possession of the girdle of the Amazonian queen Hippolyta.
He was accompanied by his friend Theseus, who carried off the princess
Antiope, sister of Hippolyta, an incident which led to a retaliatory
invasion of Attica, in which Antiope perished fighting by the side
of Theseus. First Hippolyte had been favorable to gift the girdle
to Heracles, but Hera, disguised as Hippolyte, started the war.
Sthenelus was killed during the war. In some versions, however,
Theseus marries Hippolyta and in others, he marries Antiope and
she does not die; by this marriage with the Amazon Theseus had a
son Hippolytus. In another version of this myth, Theseus made this
voyage on his own account, after the time of Heracles.
The
battle between the Athenians and Amazons is often commemorated in
an entire genre of art, amazonomachy, in marble bas-reliefs such
as from the Parthenon or the sculptures of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus.
In The Eumenides, Athena says to the citizens of Attica that Amazons
used the Areopagus as a camp during their campaign against Athens
and Theseus. Plutarch, in his Parallel Lives (The Life of Theseus),
mentions that Bion said that the Amazons, were naturally friendly
to men, and did not fly from Theseus when he touched upon their
coasts.
Amazons
are also heard of in the time of Alexander, when some of the king's
biographers make mention of the Amazon Queen Thalestris visiting
him and becoming a mother by him (the story is known from the Alexander
Romance). However, several other biographers of Alexander dispute
the claim, including the highly regarded secondary source, Plutarch.
In his writing he makes mention of a moment when Alexander's secondary
naval commander, Onesicritus, was reading the Amazon passage of
his Alexander history to King Lysimachus of Thrace who was on the
original expedition: the king smiled at him and said "And where
was I, then?".
Battles
with and against Dionysus :
According to Plutarch, when the god Dionysus and his entourage fought
the Amazons at Ephesus, the Amazons fled to Samos. Dionysus pursued
them and at Samos he killed a great number of them on a spot which
was, from that occurrence, called Panaema, which means blood-soaked
field. The Christian author Eusebius writes that during the reign
of Oxyntes, one of the mythical kings of Athens, the Amazons burned
down the temple at Ephesus.
In
another myth Dionysus united with the Amazons to fight against Cronus
and the Titans. Polyaenus writes that after Dionysus had subdued
the Indians, he formed an alliance with them and the Amazons, and
took them into his service. He later used them in his campaign against
the Bactria. Nonnus in his Dionysiaca writes about the Amazons of
Dionysus, but he says that they were not from Thermodon.
Afterlife
of a myth :
Magnes, a poet from Smyrna had sung of the bravery of Lydians in
a cavalry-battle against the Amazons.
Virgil's
characterization of the Volscian warrior maiden Camilla in the Aeneid
borrows heavily from the myth of the Amazons. Philostratus, in Heroica,
writes that the Mysian women fought from horses alongside the men,
just as the Amazons did, and the leader was Hiera, wife of Telephus.
The
Amazons are also said to have undertaken an expedition against the
island of Leuke, at the mouth of the Danube, where the ashes of
Achilles had been deposited by Thetis. The ghost of the dead hero
appeared and so terrified the horses, that they threw and trampled
upon the invaders, who were forced to retire. Pompey is said to
have found them in the army of Mithridates.
Jordanes'
Getica (c. 560 CE), purporting to give the earliest history of the
Goths, relates that the Goths' ancestors, descendants of Magog,
originally dwelt within Scythia, on the Sea of Azov between the
Dnieper and Don Rivers. After a few centuries, following an incident
where the Goths' women successfully fended off a raid by a neighboring
tribe, while the menfolk were off campaigning against Pharaoh Vesosis,
the women formed their own army under Marpesia and crossed the Don,
invading Asia. Her sister Lampedo remained in Europe to guard the
homeland. They procreated with men once a year. These Amazons conquered
Armenia, Syria, and all of Asia Minor, even reaching Ionia and Aeolis,
holding this vast territory for 100 years. Jordanes also mentions
that they fought with Hercules, and in the Trojan War, and that
a smaller contingent of them endured in the Caucasus Mountains until
the time of Alexander. He mentions by name the Queens Menalippe,
Hippolyta, and Penthesilea.
In
the Grottaferrata Version of Digenes Akritas, the twelfth century
medieval epic of Basil, the Greek-Syrian knight of the Byzantine
frontier, the hero battles with and kills the female warrior Maximo,
descended from some Amazons and taken by Alexander from the Brahmans.
Names
:
There
are several conflicting lists of names of Amazons.
Quintus
Smyrnaeus :
![](AmazoneStaatlicheAntikensammlungen.jpg)
A
helmeted Amazon with her sword and a shield bearing the Gorgon head
image, Tondo of an Attic red-figure kylix, 510–500 BC, Staatliche
Antikensammlungen, Berlin
Quintus Smyrnaeus lists the attendant warriors of Penthesilea: "Clonie
was there, Polemusa, Derinoe, Evandre, and Antandre, and Bremusa,
Hippothoe, dark-eyed Harmothoe, Alcibie, Derimacheia, Antibrote,
and Thermodosa glorying with the spear."
Diodorus
Siculus :
Diodorus Siculus lists twelve Amazons who challenged Heracles to
single combat during his quest for Hippolyta's girdle and died against
him one by one: Aella, Philippis, Prothoe, Eriboea, Celaeno, Eurybia,
Phoebe, Deianeira, Asteria, Marpe, Tecmessa, Alcippe. After Alcippe's
death, a group attack followed. She also mentions Melanippe, who
he set free after accepting her girdle as ransom and Antiope, who
he gifted to Theseus.
Diodorus
also lists another group of Amazons in book 3. He mentions Myrina
as the queen who commanded the Amazons in a military expedition
in Lybia, as well as her sister Mytilene, after whom she named the
city of the same name. Myrina also named three more cities after
the Amazons who held the most important commands under her, Cyme,
Pitane, and Priene.
Justin
and Paulus Orosius :
![](Orientm%E9diterran%E9endelEmpireromainMosa%EFquebyzantine.jpg)
A
hippeis rider seizes a mounted Amazonian warrior (armed with a labrys)
by her Phrygian cap, Roman mosaic emblema (marble and limestone)
from Daphne, a suburb of Antioch-on-the-Orontes (now Antakya in
Turkey), second half of the 4th century AD, now in the Louvre, Paris
Both Justin in his Epitome of Trogus Pompeius and Paulus Orosius
give an account of the Amazons, citing the same names. Queens Marpesia
and Lampedo shared the power during and incursion in Europe and
Asia, where they were slain. Marpesia's daughter Orithyia succeeded
them and was greatly admired for her skill on war. She shared power
with her sister Antiope, but she was engaged in war abroad when
Heracles attacked. Two of Antiope's sisters were taken prisoner,
Menalippe by Heracles and Hippolyta by Theseus. Heracles latter
restored Menalippe to her sister after receiving the queen's arms
in exchange, though, on other accounts she was killed by Telamon.
They also mention Penthesilea's role in the Trojan War.
Justin
is the only who mentions another queen, Minithya or Thalestris,
who shared the bed of Alexander the Great in order to conceive,
while Paulus mentions Sinope, successor of Lampedo and Marpesia.
Hyginus
:
Another list of Amazons' names is found in Hyginus' Fabulae. Along
with Hippolyta, Otrera, Antiope and Penthesilea, it attests the
following names: Ocyale, Dioxippe, Iphinome, Xanthe, Hippothoe,
Laomache, Glauce, Agave, Theseis, Clymene, Polydora.
Perhaps
the most important is Queen Otrera, consort of Ares and mother by
him of Hippolyta and Penthesilea. She's also known for building
a temple to Artemis at Ephesus.
Valerius
Flaccus :
Another different set of names is found in Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica:
he mentions Euryale, Harpe, Lyce, Menippe and Thoe. Of these Lyce
also appears in a fragment preserved in the Latin Anthology where
she is said to have killed the hero Clonus of Moesia, son of Doryclus,
with her javelin.
John
Tzetzes :
John Tzetzes in Posthomerica enumerates the Amazons who fell at
Troy: Hippothoe, Antianeira, Toxophone, Toxoanassa, Gortyessa, Iodoce,
Pharetre, Andro, Ioxeia, Oïstrophe, Androdaïxa, Aspidocharme,
Enchesimargos, Cnemis, Thorece, Chalcaor, Eurylophe, Hecate, Anchimache
and Andromache the queen. For almost all the names on the list,
except Antianeira and Andromache, this is a unique attestation.[citation
needed]
Stephanus
of Byzantium and Eustathius :
Stephanus of Byzantium provides an alternate list of the Amazons
who fell against Heracles, describing them as "the most prominent"
of their people: Tralla, Isocrateia, Thiba, Palla, Coea (Koia),
Coenia (Koinia). Eustathius gives the same list minus the last two
names. Both Stephanus and Eustathius write of these Amazons in connection
with the placename Thibais, which they report to have been derived
from Thiba's name.
Stephanus
also mentions other Amazons in other entries of his work :
•
Amastris, who was believed to be the eponym of the city previously
known as Kromna, although the city was actually named after the
historical Amastris.
• Anaea, an Amazon whose tomb was shown at
the island of Samos. In addition, the city Anaea in Caria was named
after the Amazon.
• Cyme, who gave her name to the city of
Cyme (Aeolis).
• Cynna, one of the two possible eponyms
(the other one being "Cynnus, brother of Coeus") of Cynna,
a small town not far from Heraclea.
• Ephesos, a Lydian Amazon, after whom the
city of Ephesus was thought to have been named; she was also said
to have been the first to honor Artemis and to have surnamed the
goddess Ephesia. Her daughter Amazo was thought of as the eponym
of the Amazons.
• Myrleia, possible eponym of a city in Bithynia,
which was later known as Apamea.
• Sisyrbe, after whom a part of Ephesus was
called Sisyrba, and its inhabitants the Sisyrbitae.
• Smyrna, who obtained possession of Ephesus
and gave her name to a quarter in this city, as well as to the city
of Smyrna.
Other names of Amazons from various sources include :
•
Aegea, queen of the Amazons who was thought by some to have been
the eponym of the Aegean Sea.
• Ainia, presumably accompanied Penthesilea
to the Trojan War, killed by Achilles; known only from an Attic
terracotta relief fragment.
• Ainippe, an Amazon who confronted Telamon
in the battle against Heracles' troops.
• Alce, who was said to have killed the young
Oebalus of Arcadia, son of Ida (otherwise unknown), with her spear
during the Parthian War.
• Andromache, an Amazon who fought Heracles and was
defeated; only known from vase paintings. Not to be confused with
Andromache, wife of Hector.
• Antianeira, succeeded Penthesilea as Queen
of the Amazons. She was best known for ordering her male servants
to be crippled "as the lame best perform the acts of love".
• Areto and Iphito, two little-known Amazons,
whose names are only attested in inscriptions on artefacts.
• Clete, one of the twelve followers of Penthesilea.
After Penthesilea's death she, in accord with the former's will,
sailed off and eventually landed in Italy, founding the city of
Clete.
• Eurypyle, queen of the Amazons who was
reported to have led an expedition against Ninus and Babylon around
1760 BC.
• Gryne, an Amazon who was thought to be
the eponym of the Gryneian grove in Asia Minor. She was loved by
Apollo and consorted with him in said grove.
• Helene, daughter of Tityrus. She fought
Achilles and died after he gravely wounded her.
• Hippo, an Amazon who took part in the introduction
of religious rites in honor of the goddess Artemis. She was punished
by the goddess for not having performed a ritual dance.
• Latoreia, who had a small village near
Ephesus named after her.
• Lysippe, mother of Tanais by Berossos.
Her son only venerated Ares and was fully devoted to war, neglecting
love and marriage. Aphrodite cursed him with falling in love with
his own mother. Preferring to die rather than give up his chastity,
he threw himself into the river Amazonius, which was subsequently
renamed Tanais.
• Molpadia, an Amazon who killed Antiope.
• Myrto, in one source, mother of Myrtilus
by Hermes (elsewhere his mother is called Theobule).
• Pantariste, who killed Timiades in the
battle between the Amazons and Heracles' troops.
• Sanape, who fled to Pontus and married
a local king. "Sanape" means "from wine country"
in Circassian. According to a commentary, it was purported to mean
"drunkard" in the local language.
• Themiscyra, the eponym of the Amazon capital.
Hero cults :
According to ancient sources (Plutarch, Theseus, Pausanias), Amazon
tombs could be found frequently throughout what was once known as
the ancient Greek world. Some are found in Megara, Athens, Chaeronea,
Chalcis, Thessaly at Skotousa, in Cynoscephalae, and statues of
Amazons are all over Greece. Stephanus of Byzantium, quoting Ephorus,
mention that the tomb of the amazon Anaea was at the city of Anaea,
which also has this name after the amazon.
At
both Chalcis and Athens, Plutarch tells us that there was an Amazoneum
or shrine of Amazons that implied the presence of both tombs and
cult. At the entrance of Athens there was a monument to the Amazon
Antiope. On the day before the Thesea at Athens there were annual
sacrifices to the Amazons. In the Axiochus, mention about an Amazonian
stele near the Itonian Gate at Athens. In historical times Greek
maidens of Ephesus performed an annual circular dance with weapons
and shields that had been established by Hippolyta and her Amazons.
They had initially set up wooden statues of Artemis, a bretas (Pausanias,
(AD 160): Description of Greece, Book I: Attica).
Harpokration
mention that Ammonius of Athens in his book "On Altars and
Sacrifices" writes that the Amazons founded the Amazoneion
sanctuary at Athens.
In
art :
![](Gladiatrixrelief.jpg)
Two
female gladiators with their names Amazonia and Achillea
In
works of art, battles between Amazons and Greeks are placed on the
same level as – and often associated with – battles
of Greeks and centaurs. The belief in their existence, however,
having been once accepted and introduced into the national poetry
and art, it became necessary to surround them as far as possible
with the appearance of natural beings. Amazons were therefore depicted
in the manner of Scythian or Sarmatian horsemen. Their occupation
was hunting and war; their arms the bow, spear, axe, a half shield,
nearly in the shape of a crescent, called pelta, and in early art
a helmet. The model in the Greek mind had apparently been the goddess
Athena. In later art they approach the model of Artemis, wearing
a thin dress, girt high for speed; while on the later painted vases
their dress is often peculiarly Persian – that is, close-fitting
trousers and a high cap called the kidaris. They were usually on
horseback but sometimes on foot. This depiction of Amazons demonstrates
just how closely, in the Greek mind, the Amazons were linked to
the Scythians.
Their
manner of dress has been noted to bear a striking similarity to
the traditional dress of nomadic peoples from the Crimea to Mongolia.
Amazons were described by Herodotus as wearing trousers and having
tall stiff caps.[citation needed] The double-sided axe was the most
emblematic of their weapons. Amazons can also be identified in vase
paintings by the fact that they are wearing one earring. The battle
between Theseus and the Amazons (Amazonomachy) is a favourite subject
on the friezes of temples (e.g. the reliefs from the frieze of the
Temple of Apollo at Bassae, now in the British Museum), vases and
sarcophagus reliefs; at Athens it was represented on the shield
of the statue of Athena Parthenos, on wall-paintings in the Theseum
and in the Stoa Poikile. There were also three standard Amazon statue
types.
In
the Essays in Portraiture, Lucian of Samosata ask Polystratos which,
he think, is the best work of Phidias and Polystratos respond "The
Lemnian Athene, which bears the artist's own signature; and of course
the Amazon leaning on her spear."
Later
in the Renaissance, as Amazon myth evolved, artists started to depict
warrior women in a new light. Queen Elizabeth was often thought
of as an Amazon-like warrior during her reign and was sometimes
depicted as such. Though, as explained in Divinia Viagro by Winfried
Schleiner, Celeste T. Wright "has given a detailed account
of the bad press Amazons had in the Renaissance (with respect to
their unwomanly conduct and Scythian cruelty). She notes that she
has not found any Elizabethans comparing the queen directly to an
Amazon, and suggests that they might have hesitated to do so because
of the association of Amazons with enfranchisement of women, which
was considered contemptible."
Peter
Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel depicted the Battle of the Amazons
around 1598, showing many attributes of Renaissance-styled paintings.
Amazons also appear in the Rococo period in another painting titled
Battle of the Amazons by Johann Georg Platzer. As a part of the
Romantic period revival, German artist Anselm Feuerbach painted
the Amazons as well. His paintings “engendered all the aspirations
of the Romantics: their desire to transcend the boundaries of the
ego and of the known world; their interest in the occult in nature
and in the soul; their search for a national identity, and the ensuing
search for the mythic origins of the Germanic nation; finally, their
wish to escape the harsh realities of the present through immersion
in an idealized past.”
In
historiography :
![](020image.jpg)
Amazon
in combat, infl.[further explanation needed] Polyclitus, Rome, now
in the Brooklyn Museum Archives, Goodyear Archival Collection
Herodotus
reported that the Sarmatians were descendants of Amazons and Scythians,
and that their wives observed their ancient maternal customs, "frequently
hunting on horseback with their husbands; in war taking the field;
and wearing the very same dress as the men". Moreover, said
Herodotus, "No girl shall wed till she has killed a man in
battle". In the story related by Herodotus, a group of Amazons
was blown across the Maeotian Lake (the Sea of Azov) into Scythia
near the cliff region (today's southeastern Crimea). After learning
the Scythian language, they agreed to marry Scythian men, on the
condition that they not be required to follow the customs of Scythian
women. According to Herodotus, this band moved toward the northeast,
settling beyond the Tanais (Don) river, and became the ancestors
of the Sauromatians. According to Herodotus, the Sarmatians fought
with the Scythians against Darius the Great in the 5th century BC.
Xenophon
in Anabasis writes that Democrates of Temnus captured a man with
a Persian bow, a quiver and a battleaxe of the same sort that Amazons
carry.
Hippocrates
describes them as: "They have no right breasts...for while
they are yet babies their mothers make red-hot a bronze instrument
constructed for this very purpose and apply it to the right breast
and cauterize it, so that its growth is arrested, and all its strength
and bulk are diverted to the right shoulder and right arm."
Amazons
came to play a role in Roman historiography. Caesar reminded the
Senate of the conquest of large parts of Asia by Semiramis and the
Amazons. Successful Amazon raids against Lycia and Cilicia contrasted
with effective resistance by Lydian cavalry against the invaders
(Strabo 5.504; Nicholas Damascenus). Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus pays
particularly detailed attention to the Amazons. The story of the
Amazons as deriving from a Cappadocian colony of two Scythian princes
Ylinos and Scolopetos is due to him. Pliny the Elder records some
surprising facts pointing to the valley of the Terme River as possibly
being their home: a mountain named for them (the modern Mason Dagi),
as well as a settlement Amazonium; Herodotus (VI.86) first mentions
their capital Themiscyra, which Pliny locates near the Terme. Philostratus
places the Amazons in the Taurus Mountains. Ammianus places them
east of Tanais, as neighbouring the Alans. Procopius places them
in the Caucasus. Diodorus Siculus (Bibliotheca historica III, chapter
52) mentioned that besides Pontus Amazons existed much older race
(at that time entirely disappeared) of Amazons from western Libya,
and retells their mythological story which includes Atlantis and
Greek mythology.
Although
Strabo shows skepticism as to their historicity, the Amazons in
general continue to be taken as historical throughout Late Antiquity.
Several Church Fathers speak of the Amazons as of a real people.
Solinus embraces the account of Pliny. Under Aurelianus, captured
Gothic women were identified as Amazons (Claudianus). The account
of Justinus was influential, and was used as a source by Orosius
who continued to be read during the European Middle Ages. Medieval
authors thus continue the tradition of locating the Amazons in the
North, Adam of Bremen placing them at the Baltic Sea and Paulus
Diaconus in the heart of Germania.
Pausanias
at the Description of Greece writes that near Pyrrhichus there were
sanctuaries of the gods Artemis, called Astrateia, and Apollo, called
Amazonius with images of the gods said to have been dedicated by
the women from Thermodon.
Medieval
and Renaissance literature :
Amazons
continued to be discussed by authors of the European Renaissance,
and with the Age of Exploration, they were located in ever more
remote areas. In 1542, Francisco de Orellana reached the Amazon
River (Amazonas in Spanish), naming it after a tribe of warlike
women he claimed to have encountered and fought on the Nhamundá
River, a tributary of the Amazon. Afterwards the whole basin and
region of the Amazon (Amazônia in Portuguese, Amazonía
in Spanish) were named after the river. Amazons also figure in the
accounts of both Christopher Columbus and Walter Raleigh. Famous
medieval traveller John Mandeville mentions them in his book:
Beside
the land of Chaldea is the land of Amazonia, that is the land of
Feminye. And in that realm is all woman and no man; not as some
may say, that men may not live there, but for because that the women
will not suffer no men amongst them to be their sovereigns.
Medieval
and Renaissance authors credit the Amazons with the invention of
the battle-axe. This is probably related to the sagaris, an axe-like
weapon associated with both Amazons and Scythian tribes by Greek
authors (see also Thracian tomb of Aleksandrovo kurgan). Paulus
Hector Mair expresses astonishment that such a "manly weapon"
should have been invented by a "tribe of women", but he
accepts the attribution out of respect for his authority, Johannes
Aventinus.
Ariosto's
Orlando Furioso contains a country of warrior women, ruled by Queen
Orontea; the epic describes an origin much like that in Greek myth,
in that the women, abandoned by a band of warriors and unfaithful
lovers, rallied together to form a nation from which men were severely
reduced, to prevent them from regaining power. The Amazons and Queen
Hippolyta are also referenced in Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
in "The Knight's Tale".
Archaeology
:
Scythians and Sarmatians :
![](AmazoneStaatlicheAntikensammlungen1.jpg)
Riding
Amazon in Scythian costume, Attic red-figure vase, c.420 BC, Staatliche
Antikensammlungen, Munich
Speculation
that the idea of Amazons contains a core of reality is based on
archaeological findings from burials, pointing to the possibility
that some Sarmatian women may have participated in battle. These
findings have led scholars to suggest that the Amazonian legend
in Greek mythology may have been "inspired by real warrior
women".
Evidence
of high-ranking warrior women comes from kurgans in southern Ukraine
and Russia. David Anthony notes, "About 20% of Scythian-Sarmatian
'warrior graves' on the lower Don and lower Volga contained women
dressed for battle similar to how men dress, a phenomenon that probably
inspired the Greek tales about the Amazons."
Up
to 25% of military burials were of armed Sarmatian women usually
including bows. Russian archaeologist Vera Kovalevskaya points out
that when Scythian men were away fighting or hunting, nomadic women
would have to be able to defend themselves, their animals and pasture-grounds
competently. During the time that the Scythians advanced into Asia
and achieved near-hegemony in the Near East, there was a period
of twenty-eight years when the men would have been away on campaigns
for long periods. During this time the women would not only have
had to defend themselves, but to reproduce, and this could well
be the origin of the idea that Amazons mated once a year with their
neighbours, if Herodotus actually based his accounts on fact.
Before
modern archaeology uncovered some of the Scythian burials of warrior-maidens
entombed under kurgans in the region of Altai Mountains and Sarmatia,
giving concrete form at last to the Greek tales, the origin of the
Amazon story had been the subject of speculation among classics
scholars. In the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica speculation
ranged along the following lines:
While
some regard the Amazons as a purely mythical people, others assume
an historical foundation for them. The deities worshipped by them
were Ares (who is consistently assigned to them as a god of war,
and as a god of Thracian and generally northern origin) and Artemis,
not the usual Greek goddess of that name, but an Asiatic deity in
some respects her equivalent. It is conjectured that the Amazons
were originally the temple-servants and priestesses (hierodulae)
of this goddess; and that the removal of the breast corresponded
with the self-mutilation of the god Attis and the galli, Roman priests
of Rhea Cybele. Another theory is that, as the knowledge of geography
extended, travellers brought back reports of tribes ruled entirely
by women, who carried out the duties which elsewhere were regarded
as peculiar to man, in whom alone the rights of nobility and inheritance
were vested, and who had the supreme control of affairs. Hence arose
the belief in the Amazons as a nation of female warriors, organized
and governed entirely by women. According to J. Viirtheim (De Ajacis
origine, 1907), the Amazons were of Greek origin [...] It has been
suggested that the fact of the conquest of the Amazons being assigned
to the two famous heroes of Greek mythology, Heracles and Theseus
[...] shows that they were mythical illustrations of the dangers
which beset the Greeks on the coasts of Asia Minor; rather perhaps,
it may be intended to represent the conflict between the Greek culture
of the colonies on the Euxine and the barbarism of the native inhabitants.
Minoan
Crete :
When Minoan archeology was still in its infancy, nevertheless, a
theory raised in an essay regarding the Amazons contributed by Lewis
Richard Farnell and John Myres to Robert Ranulph Marett's Anthropology
and the Classics (1908), placed their possible origins in Minoan
civilization, drawing attention to overlooked similarities between
the two cultures. According to Myres, the tradition interpreted
in the light of evidence furnished by supposed Amazon cults seems
to have been very similar and may have even originated in Minoan
culture.
Modern
legacy :
![](AmazoneaufSondermarke.jpg)
Amazon
on a special stamp promoting German horse races in the 1930s
Niketas
Choniates wrote that when the Germans attacked during the Emperor
Manuel I Komnenos reign, females were numbered among them riding
horses and bearing weapons and they were like the Amazons. Added
that one stood out from the rest as another Penthesilea.
Francisco
de Orellana gave the Amazon river its name after reporting pitched
battles with tribes of female warriors, whom he likened to the Amazons.
The
city of Samsun in modern-day Turkey features a recently constructed
"Amazon Village" museum, created to bring attention to
the legacy of the Amazons and to generate both academic interest
and popular tourism. A festival is also held every year in the Terme
district of Samsun Province to celebrate the Amazons.
In
Greece, female equestrians are also called "Amazons".
Amazons
became an important subject of the fine arts around 1900, especially
in the work of the Munich painter and sculptor Franz Stuck (1863–1928).
In
Nazi Germany open air events called "Nacht der Amazonen"
(Night of the Amazons) were performed at Nymphenburg Palace in Munich
between 1936 and 1939. These revues with bare-breasted girls presented
an allegedly emancipated female role as part of the "new race"
intended to be realized by racial fanatics.
Source
:
https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Amazons