On the Trail of the Women Warriors by Lyn Webster Wilde

Although there is no conclusive evidence linking these myths to any ancient tribes resembling the Amazons, the subject’s popularity and its representations in art and literature has engendered many successive legends. There are versions that recount their killing, mutilating, or selling their male offspring into slavery.

There are many legends of the Amazon warriors in some accounts, they live in an exclusively female society and seek out men only once a year in order to procreate. This scene, prized for its emotional value, is reproduced in classical Greek art in many forms. However, the moment before she died, he lifted her helmet to see her face and fell in love with her. She engaged in one-on-one combat with Achilles, who eventually killed her. During the battle, Antiope fought on the Athenian side, and after another brutal defeat, the Amazons returned to their homeland.Īnother famous story involves the Amazon warrior Penthesilia, who went to Troy (present-day Turkey) to aid the Trojans in battle. The surviving Amazons unified with allies from Scythia (an area inhabited by nomadic people known as the Scythians, in what is modern-day Mongolia, China, Russia, Bulgaria, Azerbaijan, and Georgia) and traveled to Attica (modern southern Greece) to attack Athens and rescue Antiope.

She fell in love with him and gave birth to his son Hippolyte. Antiope went with them to Athens and lived as Theseus’s concubine. As part of their victory, Herakles captured an Amazonian princess named Antiope and gave her to Theseus, one of the legendary kings of Athens, to thank him for his help. When she refused, a bloody battle ensued in which many of the best Amazonian warriors were slain and eventually defeated.

To complete the task, Herakles and his men went to the Amazon capital, Themiscyra, located on the coast of the Black Sea, and demanded Hippolyta give them the girdle. Zeus’s jealous wife, Hera, charged Herakles with ten tasks thought to be impossible-the ninth was to the steal the girdle from the Amazon queen Hippolyta. The most popular account of the Amazon warrior is from Greek mythology-the account of the ninth labor of Herakles, who was the son of the god Zeus by a mortal woman. The source of the Amazonian myths is classical Greek literature, where they were first mentioned by Homer. According to Greek mythology, the Amazons were warrior women living northeast of Ancient Greece during the later Bronze Age, between approximately 19 B.C.E.

On the Trail of the Women Warriors by Lyn Webster Wilde