Ancient coins of Pontus provide more physical evidence linking Mithra-dates and Amazons. His city Amisus (Samsun, on the coast between Sinope and Themiscyra) issued silver coins in about 125-100 BC showing a youthful profile with curly hair wearing a pointed leather cap with ear-flaps like those worn by Scythians and Amazons in Greek vase paintings. The figure could be the young Mithradates or, more likely, an Amazon. Later in his reign (sometime between 85 and 65 BC) the city of Amisus issued a large series of bronze coins, this time depicting an Amazon with very distinctive headgear. These coins, which exist in a remarkable array of different dies (versions of similar images), are cataloged as “the bust of an Amazon” wearing a cap, helmet, or hooded cape made from a wolf’s head over her braided hair.23 Wild animal skins and furs were worn by
FiG. 21.2. Amazons in wolf-skin caps, bronze coins of Amisus, Pontus, during Mithradates’s reign, 85-65 BC. Top: courtesy American Numismatic Society 1944.100.41240.obv.2590 and 1944.100.41241.obv.2590, E. T. Newell Bequest; and courtesy of Michel Prieur, Www. cgb. fr. Bottom: courtesy wildwinds. com; cngcoins. com; Apollo Numismatics, private collections.
Scythians and related tribes, and Strabo remarked on helmets of animal hides worn by the southern Caucasus warriors (above).
Mithradates was known to issue series of small-denomination coins with propagandistic images. The existence of so many different versions is evidence that these coins showing an Amazon in a wolf cap were widely dispersed in his empire, and that the meaning of the image was immediately recognizable to the populace. The decision to display Amazons on Mithradatic coins of Amisus might have celebrated the famous mythic warrior women of Pontus. But the unusual Amazon in the unique wolf helmet appears to represent a specific character whose identity and story were very familiar to those who used the coins. Numismatists point out that distinctive figures on coins often copied well-known statues. One possibility is that the wolf-capped Amazon portrait represented Hypsicratea, Mithradates’s companion and queen. From the inscription described above we now know that at least one portrait statue of Hypsicratea did exist in antiquity. If she was known to wear a wolf-skin cap, perhaps her statue, submerged in the Sea of Azov, will someday be found. Will it match the Amisus coin portrait.?
Another possibility is that the coin image referred to some well-known local story about a wolf-hunting Amazon heroine from the territory of Amisus. The wolf cap is a hunting trophy, much like Heracles’s signature lion-skin cape fashioned from the Nemean Lion. In the list of Amazon names from ancient literature and vase paintings (appendix) two are wolfish: Lyke (“She-Wolf”) and Lykopis (“Wolf Eyes”). Paus-anias mentioned a cult of Artemis Lykeia, “Artemis of Wolves.” In the epic tale of Jason and the Argonauts, one of the three tribes of Pontus known for women warriors dwelled around Lykastia (“Wolf Land”), located by ancient geographers just southeast of Amisus. Wolf names and wolf-head helmets were also associated with the wolf cult of ancient Colchis/Iberia, and wolves are featured in numerous steppe traditions. If the coins represented Hypsicratea, her wolf cap could be a clue pointing to her Lykastian or Iberian origins. The identity of the Amazon in the wolf cap remains a mystery. But the coins are striking evidence that ideas and images of Amazons were prominent in Mithra-dates’s kingdom in the first century BC.24
And the story of Hypsicratea, Mithradates’s stouthearted Amazon partner, whose existence is now confirmed by the newfound inscription for her honorary statue, shows that in real life it was possible to depart from the ancient Greek myths demanding defeat and death for free women who were the equals of men. Even in the myths a veiled yearning for companionship hovers in the background of the tales of Atalanta and Meleager, Heracles and Hippolyte, Theseus and Antiope, Achilles and Penthesilea. Mithradates idolized Alexander the Great and strove to copy him in many ways. With Hypsicratea, he had a chance not only to recapitulate but to improve upon Alexander’s meeting with Thalestris. Thalestris declined Alexander’s invitation to join his cavalry; Hypsicratea actually did join Mithradates’s cavalry. Alexander and Thal-estris were together for less than two weeks, but Hypsicratea became Mithradates’s steadfast friend and lover for the rest of his life.
World History
