Twelve Amazons from Pontus accompanied Penthesilea to Troy, the entourage resembing a resplendent goddess surrounded by her noble escort. Quintus gives their names: Klonie, Polemusa, Derinoe, Antandre, Evandre, Bremusa, Hippothoe, “dark-eyed” Harmothoe, Alkibie, Anti-brote, Derimachea, and Thermodosa. The spectacle of the proud Amazons with their bows and spears astride horses glittering with finery lifted the Trojans’ spirits. A large group of Greek black-figure vase paintings depict Amazons and their horses, with many male warriors at their side or looking on. Some show an Amazon leading her horse before a seated man, taken to be King Priam. These scenes are thought to represent the arrival of Penthesilea and her band in Troy.16
The next morning, Penthesilea’s heart is filled with confidence because her father, Ares, had encouraged her in a dream. Quintus tells how she puts on her gleaming gold breastplate and crested helmet and buckles on a massive sword in a silver and ivory scabbard. She takes up her half-moon shield and two spears, and in her right hand she grips her battle-axe (Penthesilea’s own invention; chapter 13). Her handsome, dashing horse carries her quiver and bow. This steed had been a “gift from the North Wind’s wife Orithyia when Penthesilea was her guest in Thrace.” (Thrace was Penthesilea’s birthplace; interestingly, Orithyia was also the name of the Amazon queen who invaded Athens.) Penthesilea’s weapons are typically Thracian-Scythian, like those discovered in the graves of real fighting women (chapter 4). Her arming scene is recounted with all the loving details usually lavished on Greek male heroes.
The Greeks in their camp are surprised to see the Trojans rallying and charging onto the field with an advance guard of thirteen unfamiliar mounted warriors. The two armies clash and the slaughter commences. Penthesilea slashes through the Greek line, slaying eight warriors one right after another. Klonie kills her first opponent but is felled soon after. In fury Penthesilea slices off the arm of the Greek who disemboweled Klonie. Her comrades Bremusa, Evandre, and Thermodosa fight with valor, but at last they are cut down by Greek warriors. Deri-noe battles on but she too is slain, by a spear in the neck. Alkibie and Derimachea are both beheaded by their opponents.
The mayhem rages on, the gruesome details provided by Quintus: “Many a heart was stilled in the dust that day.” He likens Penthesilea to a bloodthirsty lioness or a howling gale at sea, as she destroys ever more Greeks with her axe and spear. “No one escapes my power!” she shouts, “Where is Achilles, where is Ajax.? They dare not face me!” Those two Greek champions are still in their tents, mourning Achilles’s beloved friend Patroclus.
The Trojan warriors exult in Penthesilea’s fearless onslaught. Watching the battle from the towers, the Trojan women are amazed. One young woman, Hippodamia (“Horse Tamer,” an Amazonian name), is seized with an impulse to join the Amazons. She jumps up and urges the other young women to take up arms: “Let us fill our hearts with courage and take an equal share of the fighting. Our bodies are as vigorous as men’s; we have the same light in our eyes and we breathe the same air! See how bold Penthesilea overpowers the men in close combat.? That foreign woman fights this ferociously even though she is far from her home,” declares Hippodamia, “but we have even more urgent reasons to fight—this is our city and we have lost husbands, fathers, brothers, sons. We stand to lose everything—far better to die fighting than be enslaved!” Her rousing words inspire the women to cast aside their wool baskets and rush out with weapons, ready to die alongside their men and the Amazons. But an older Trojan woman, Theano, stops them, pointing out that even though men and women share human nature and potential for action, the Trojan girls have had no training or experience in warfare, unlike the Amazons. Those women warriors, reasons Theano, are the peers of men because they have spent their lives doing men’s work, riding horses and delighting in battle since childhood. The long speeches of Hippodamia and Theano express the ancient belief that, with the right training and practice, women do possess the spirit and physical capacity to become warriors.
Meanwhile, on the field of battle, the “earth is drenched with blood and men lay writhing and grasping fistfuls of dust.” Penthesilea continues her relentless attack, killing all who face her and those who flee in terror. The Greeks are being pushed back to their ships. At last the din of the battle reaches Ajax and Achilles in the camp, and they rush out to join the battle. Ajax and Achilles stride through the Trojan forces, dealing death left and right. Achilles kills Penthesilea’s four remaining warrior companions: Antandre, Polemusa, Hippothoe, and Harmothoe.
World History
