Surviving and fighting

According to Greek geographer Strabo (c. 64 BCE—23 CE), no men were permitted to live in the land of the Amazons. However, in order to ensure the survival of their race, once a year the Amazons visited a nearby tribe, called the Gargareans, to mate with the men. Amazonian mothers kept the female babies born after these visits—they raised and trained them to be successful in war, hunting, and other professions. The Amazons’ male children were either put to death or sent back to the Gargareans.

Ancient and modern authors have tried to explain the word Amazon in various ways. Some ancient writers claimed that it meant “without breast,” because the women supposedly cut off their right breasts so that they could draw their bows more easily when hunting or fighting. However, all surviving Greek artwork featuring the Amazons depict them with two breasts, although the right one is frequently exposed. Other writers have suggested that the name means “not touching men,” or that it came from the word for moon, maza, spoken by the people of Circassia in the northwest Caucasus. Several accounts connect the Amazons to a moon goddess figure similar to the Greek deity Artemis. Some modern scholars favor the tradition that the Amazons lived in north Africa—they point out that the Berber peoples of present-day north Africa call themselves the Amazigh. However, Amazons was not the only name used for the tribes of female warriors in ancient myths and documents. For example, in the Iliad by the Greek poet Homer (c. ninth-eighth century BCE), the Amazons were referred to as Antianeira, or “those who fight like men.” Similarly, Herodotus called them Androktones, which means “killers of men.”

Although they mainly fought on horseback with bows and arrows, the Amazons also used swords, double-sided axes, and distinctive crescent-shaped shields. In Greek art they are sometimes depicted wearing specialized clothing, which included pants. The most famous classical depictions of the Amazons are the marble carvings from the Parthenon in Athens, which was built in the mid-fifth century BCE.