The epics about the Trojan War contain many references to the Amazons. The Iliad, for example, tells how the Amazons came to the aid of the Trojans during their war against the Greeks. Several classical authors, including Roman poet Virgil (70—19 BCE), described how the Amazon queen Penthesileia led her warriors against the Greeks.
Penthesileia was the daughter of another Amazon queen, Otrere, and the war god Ares. She became queen when she accidentally killed Antiope with a spear. In some accounts, the death occurred during the battle at the wedding of Theseus and Phaedra; in other versions, it happened when both Amazons were hunting deer. The crime of killing a queen and a fellow Amazon was a serious one, and it was claimed that Penthesileia’s support for Troy came in return for the purification of her sin by the Trojan king, Priam.
An Egyptian Amazon Story
An Egyptian story, written down by scribes on papyrus during the time of the Roman Empire, features an Amazon queen who falls in love. Although incomplete, it relates how a prince named Padikhonsu invaded the land of the Amazons, which it describes as being in Khor (modern Syria and northern Iraq). The Amazon queen, Serpot, took to the field against Padikhonsu and his Assyrian allies and came close to defeating them. The prince then challenged the queen to single combat. Serpot agreed, and the two began to fight. After a whole day's battle, the warriors had begun to fall in love with each other.
This Egyptian story shares many features with the tale of Penthesileia and Achilles, but although the papyrus breaks off before the end, it does not appear that the Egyptian tale was intended to have an unhappy ending: together Padikhonsu and Serpot fight off an invasion of the Amazons' territory by an army from India.
In battles against the Greeks, Penthesileia, who was a superb and skilled fighter, killed many warriors, including a healer named Machaon. However, she was no match for the Greek hero Achilles. According to legend, Achilles killed the Amazon queen in a fierce battle and then set about the customary practice of taking her weapons, only to fall in love with the beautiful face of his dead opponent (see box). He immediately regretted fighting her. Thersites, another Greek warrior, mocked him for loving his defeated enemy, so Achilles, always quick to anger, killed Thersites too. Of all the Greeks, only Diomedes mourned for Thersites. He angrily took Penthesileia’s body and tossed it into a river, which meant that neither side could give her a proper burial.
One story tells how, after the Trojan War, the Amazons undertook an expedition against the island of Leuke, at the mouth of the Danube River. Leuke was the place where Achilles’ mother, the sea nymph Thetis, had deposited the ashes of her son after his death at the hands of Paris and the sun god Apollo. When the Amazons arrived on the island, they saw the ghost of the dead hero. Their horses were so terrified at the sight that the invaders were forced to retreat.
World History
