MAZONS WERE THE EIRST PEOPEE TO RIDE HORSES,
The orator Lysias reminded the Athenians in his Fu. neral Oration (395 BC). Across the Black Sea, an ancient Abkhaz saga claimed that the nomads of the northern Caucasus were the first to tame and ride horses. It is said that the boundless steppes seem incomplete without a horse and rider, and the ancient Scythians—and Amazons—are indeed unthinkable without the horse. Horses were first domesticated, probably for milk and meat and pulling carts, and then for riding, around 4000 BC by nomadic men and women of the northern Black Sea-Caspian grasslands, legendary Amazon territory. Horses were ideally suited to the northern steppes. They can tolerate freezing temperatures better than cattle, and horses can reach grass under more than a foot of snow; horses can pull wagons and carry riders and loads; they provide nutritious food and drink; and they do not need full-time herders. The Amazonian lifestyle, remarked Strabo, revolved around raising and training horses whose speed and grace gave the Amazons the nickname “far-bounding.” The strongest women, Strabo noted, spent their lives hunting on horseback and honing their skills for mounted warfare. The celebrated equestrian expertise of steppe people, the centrality of horses in their lives, the nomads’ own oral traditions, and perhaps a belief in a special relationship between independent women and wild horses led the ancient Greeks to believe that the Amazons must have been the earliest horse people.1
The horse was the great equalizer of males and females on the steppes, probably one of the chief reasons for the nomads’ noteworthy gender equality. A skilled archer horsewoman could hold her own against men in battle. Riding horses liberated women, bestowing freedom of movement and an exhilarating, challenging life outdoors. Among the Greeks, only men enjoyed such physical independence in the open air; women were, ideally, confined indoors at home. On the steppes, men and women alike could travel vast distances with changes of horses bred for endurance. Three experienced riders of either sex could control large herds of semiwild horses. Horses leveled out differences in male and female strength, providing the mobility and muscle to transport riders and heavy gear, weapons, armor, household goods, plunder, and large game. Horse riding also demanded comfortable, convenient unisex clothing (see chapter 12). Because girls could learn to ride, tame, and control horses, and shoot arrows just as well as boys, the steppe culture was the perfect environment for women to become mounted hunters and fighters (plates 4 And 5).2
What might lie behind the long-standing notion that some mystical synergy, psychic harmony, or “mind meld” exists between women and horses.? Archaeologists of Botai and other early horse-riding cultures suggest that such beliefs might explain prehistoric horse/female artifacts (Chapter 6). Herodotus’s story of the stranded Amazons and young Scythian men who “tamed” each other seems to allude to Greek assumptions about wild and domesticated women and horses (Chapter 3). Some modern writers account for the long-standing impression of women’s unique rapport with horses by pointing out differences in typically “masculine” and “feminine” training styles. Horses naturally resist or fight when threatened but respond positively to nonconfrontational training based on trust and patience rather than brute force. Part of the fascination with Amazons since antiquity seems to arise from the deep historical evidence of nomad women’s special prowess when mounted on horseback.3
A fascinating historical account involving Scythian women and horses was related by Justin. He describes how in 339 BC Alexander’s father, Philip II, overcame a great Scythian confederation led by King Ateas, whose peoples extended from the Danube in Thrace to the Sea of Azov. After his defeat of Ateas, Philip tried to bring twenty thousand
Purebred Scythian mares back to Macedon in the hope of improving the Greek horse stock. Philip also brought back twenty thousand Scythian women and children. The figures may be exaggerated, but they give an indication of the population of Scythians in that region and their vast herds. Some of the Scythian captives were probably horsewomen, and they would have tended their own horses on the long march to Macedon. On the way, Philip was attacked by another powerful Thracian-Scythian tribe, the Triballi. In the battle, a spear pierced Philip’s thigh and killed his horse. All of the captive mares and the women were freed and escaped back into Scythia.4
World History
