Amazons

The Amazons were a race of female warriors in Greek mythology who dwelled on the northern limits of the known world.

Date: Legendary from before 800 b. c.e.

Category: Women; cities and civilizations

Locale: Themiscyra (a town on the south coast of the Black Sea), on the Tanais (the river Don), by the Caspian Gates

Summary The Amazons (AM-uh-zawnz) were fierce warriors governed by a queen. They worshiped Ares, the god of war, and Artemis, the virgin goddess of the hunt. They engaged in hunting and fighting on horseback, with bows, crescent-shaped shields, axes, and spears. In order to perpetuate their race, the Amazons periodically mated with men of neighboring tribes, afterward killing, maiming, or returning the male infants and cutting off the right breasts of the female offspring so that they would be better able to use a bow. The tales of breast removal led to the belief that the word “Amazon” was derived from the Greek words a, “not,” and mazos, “breast,” even though, in most ancient works of art, Amazons are portrayed with two breasts.

Significance The Amazons figure in much epic and other Greek literature. In Homer’s Iliad (c. 750 b. c.e., English translation, 1611), the Trojan king Priam claims to have once helped ward off an Amazon attack, although another mythic tradition asserts that the Amazons, led by their queen Penthesilea, came to Priam’s rescue after the death of his son Hector. After fighting bravely, Penthesilea was killed by the Greek warrior Achilles, who was so moved by her military prowess and by the beauty of her dead body that he ordered the Greeks to build a monument to her. When Greek soldier Thersites ridiculed Achilles’ compassion and accused the hero of being in love with Penthesilea, Achilles killed him in anger.

Heracles fought the Amazons in order to complete the ninth labor im-

Amazons hunting. (F. R. Niglutsch)

Posed upon him by Eurystheus, king of Mycenae and Tiryns. He had to obtain the girdle of the Amazon queen Hippolyta. Although Hippolyta was willing to hand over her girdle to Heracles, the goddess Hera spread a false rumor among the Amazons that the hero intended to carry off the wearer of the girdle as well. The Amazons attacked, and, in the battle that ensued, Heracles killed Hippolyta and many of her followers.

In another account, Theseus attacked the Amazons after their encounter with Heracles and carried off their queen, Antiope (or Hippolyta, in some versions). She became the mother of Theseus’s son Hippolytus, who would later devote himself to hunting and to worshiping the virgin goddess Artemis.

Further Reading

Anderson, Florence M. Religious Cults Associated with the Amazons.

1912. Reprint. New York: AMS Press, 1967.

Blok, Josine H. The Early Amazons: Modern and Ancient Perspectives on a Persistent Myth. Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 120. Boston: Brill Academic, 1994.

Davis-Kimball, Jeannine, with Mona Behan. Warrior Women: An Archaeologist’s Search for History’s Hidden Heroines. New York: Warner Books, 2002.

Tyrrell, William B. Amazons: A Study in Athenian Mythmaking. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984.

Wheelwright, Julie. Amazons and Military Maids: Women Who Dressed as Men in Pursuit of Life, Liberty, and Happiness. New York: New York University Press, 1990.

Wilde, Lyn Webster. On the Trial of the Women Warriors: The Amazons in Myth and History. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2000.

Robert J. White

See also: Mythology; Women’s Life.