Amazons

Amazons A legendary nation of female warriors, supposedly of Caucasian origin, living in Pontus near the shore of the Euxine Sea. The distinctiveness of the fabled Amazons lay in their being an all-female tribe who destroyed the right breasts of girls at puberty so as to permit them to draw a bow more easily – hence their Greek name: mazon (breast), and a (no). According to Herodotus they formed a separate realm under the government of their queen, their capital being Themiscyra in Cappadocia on the banks of the River Thermodon. From there they were said to carry out warlike raids into Scythia, Thrace, the coasts of Asia Minor, and the Aegean islands, penetrating as far as Arabia, Syria, and Egypt.

No men were permitted to live in their territory, but once a year, to prevent them from dying out, they visited the neighbouring Gargareans and formed temporary sexual unions. Such male children as resulted were either put to death or sent back to their fathers; but the daughters were kept, brought up by their mothers, and trained in agriculture, hunting, and fighting.

These legendary Amazons appear in several Greek fables. The Iliad tells us that they invaded Lycia, but were defeated by Bellerophon. According to Virgil they attacked the Phrygians, who were assisted by Priam, though later they took his side against the Greeks, under the Amazon queen Penthesileia, who was killed by Achilles. One of the labours imposed on Heracles (the Roman Hercules) was to gain possession of the girdle of the Amazonian queen, Hippolyte. Hercules' companion, Theseus, ravished Princess Antiope, Hippolyte's sister. The Amazons also crop up at the time of Alexander the Great, and Pompey was said to have come across them in Mithridates' army. The deities they worshipped were Ares (whom they saw as a god of war of Thracian origin), and Artemis — not the Greek goddess but the Asiatic deity.

The origin of the story of the Amazons has been widely disputed. Many have argued that they were purely a mythical people; but others assume some kind of historical foundation. It has been suggested that, with the spread of geographical knowledge, travellers brought back reports of tribes, on the very borders of the known world, ruled by women who fulfilled duties elsewhere judged as unique to men. Hence belief grew in the Amazons as a nation of female warriors, organized and governed entirely by women. The fact that Heracles and Theseus, the two famous heroes of Greek mythology, are credited with the conquest of the Amazons has been taken by some to suggest that the Amazons were mythical representations of the perils that beset the Greeks on the coasts of Asia Minor. Alternatively the Amazon legend may represent the struggle between Greek culture and native barbarism, or the perennial travellers' tale of an upside-down world, or — a Freudian explanation — basic misogynistic fears.

In works of art, fighting between Amazons and Greeks is represented as similar to combats between Greeks and centaurs. Their arms were the bow, spear, and axe, a crescent-shaped shield, called pelta, and (in early art) a helmet — the original model in the Greek mind apparently being the goddess Athena. In later art they approach the style of Artemis, wearing flimsy attire, hitched up for speed. On still later painted vases, their dress is distinctively Persian — close-fitting trousers and a high cap called the kidaris. The battle between Theseus and the Amazons is a favoured subject on temple friezes, vases and sarcophagus reliefs; at Athens it was represented on the shield of the statue of Athena Parthenos.

Since classical times, ‘amazonian’ has been widely applied as an epithet to barbarous women or self-sufficient groups of women who eschew the company of males.

Roy Porter