{"id":11914,"date":"2022-03-15T13:00:05","date_gmt":"2022-03-15T12:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historyextra.com\/?p=26147"},"modified":"2022-03-15T14:04:13","modified_gmt":"2022-03-15T13:04:13","slug":"the-real-amazons-the-legendary-warrior-women-who-inspired-fighters-feminists-and-wonder-woman","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/rss_feed\/the-real-amazons-the-legendary-warrior-women-who-inspired-fighters-feminists-and-wonder-woman\/","title":{"rendered":"The real Amazons: the legendary warrior women who inspired fighters, feminists and Wonder Woman"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Rachel Dinning\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 15 March 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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The ancient Greeks<\/a> absolutely knew<\/em> that Amazonian women were real \u2013 or, at least, that they had<\/em> been. Heroes of old had encountered Amazons in the martial women\u2019s kingdom, Themiscyra, on the southern shores of the Black Sea. Amazons had invaded Greece, their advance halted in a great battle. Herodotus related how they had been captured, carried away in Greek ships and escaped to the banks of the river Don, where they intermarried with Scythian tribesmen.<\/p>\n

No one knew where the name \u2018Amazon\u2019 came from, so the Greeks made up an etymology, claiming it derived from a-mazdos<\/em> \u2013 without a breast: these fearsome women cut off their right breasts to remove an obstruction to the bowstring, it was claimed. How could all this not be true?<\/p>\n

These fearsome women cut off their right breasts to remove an obstruction to the bowstring, it was claimed <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>
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Women in ancient Greece: what were their lives like?<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>
Well, most of it \u2013 including the supposed etymology \u2013 wasn\u2019t. It was folklore. There was no kingdom of Amazons. But there was a kernel of truth. In the grasslands of inner Asia, from the Black Sea to western China, Scythian women had the same skills as their men: wielding bows, riding and herding animals, fighting \u2013 and dying from their injuries. Their remains have been found in tomb-mounds from the Crimea to western China.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the Greek myth planted itself in the European imagination, finding expression in novels, plays and art. It was transported to the New World by Spaniards who, while exploring a great river, heard vague reports of female warriors, and named the mighty waterway after them. In due course, the world\u2019s greatest river gave its name to the world\u2019s most dominant online sales machine.<\/p>\n
For centuries, women warriors en masse have been dubbed \u2018Amazons\u2019. Regiments of such women existed in Dahomey (in what\u2019s now Benin) and in the Soviet air force, and the female fighters of Kurdistan have a formidable reputation. This article introduces some of the major \u2018Amazons\u2019 in myth, art and history, along with the truth behind the legends and their impact on the real world.<\/p>\n
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1<\/span>
Hippolyte, queen of the Amazons<\/h3>\n<\/div>
It all began with Hercules (or Heracles, as the Greeks called him), in the legendary dream-time before the Greeks learned to write. To expiate the crime of killing his own children, the story went, Hercules was challenged by Eurysthenes, king of Argos, to complete 12 tasks. One of his labours was to steal a golden girdle owned by Hippolyte \u2013 queen of the Amazons and daughter of Ares, god of war \u2013 that was coveted by the king\u2019s daughter, Admete.<\/p>\n
These warrior women, it was reputed, lived on the river Thermedon (today\u2019s Terme), on the southern shores of the Black Sea. In legend they captured men whom they used as studs, rearing only female children and killing the males. Despite the prevalence of the a-mazdos etymology myth, in truth the Greeks must have known this to be nonsense \u2013 their artists always depicted the Amazons as intact.<\/p>\n
According to the legend, Hercules met Hippolyte, seized her girdle (with or without a fight \u2013 versions vary), perhaps or perhaps not killing her, and escaped back to Greece.<\/p>\n
Was there any truth behind such legends? Not much. The Amazon nation was the ultimate imagined threat to Greek machismo. By conquering the Amazons (in myth, at least), Greek heroes were made to seem more heroic.<\/p>\n
There was, though, a kernel of fact. The Greeks of the early first millennium BC had explored the shores of the Black Sea, and knew of the horse-riding Scythians; indeed, Herodotus described them in the fifth century BC. Their women shared the skills of the men: they were supreme horsewomen, mistresses of the bow, fighters and victims of conflict, as recent archaeological finds testify.<\/p>\n
Writers gave the mythical Amazons suitable names. Hippolyte, for example, derives from the Greek for \u2018releases the horses\u2019 \u2013 a hint of a truth hidden behind the layers of legend.<\/p>\n
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2<\/span>
Thalestris: the sex-hungry Scythian warrior queen<\/h3>\n<\/div>
Is there evidence that Greeks actually met any \u2018Amazons\u2019? One story about Alexander the Great<\/a> suggests that they did.<\/p>\n
In 330 BC, the ambitious Macedonian warrior had conquered Persia and was advancing eastward along the shores of the Caspian Sea (in present-day Iran). In a first-century-BC version of the story, an Amazonian queen named Thalestris marched out from her homeland and demanded to meet the great Alexander. Attended by 300 women, she made an extraordinary request: she wanted \u201cto share children with the king, being worthy that he should beget from her heirs to \u2028his kingdom\u201d. Alexander was \u2013 according to Plutarch\u2019s pen-portrait \u2013 quite small, not athletic and not much interested in sex<\/a>. But Thalestris persisted \u2013 and prevailed. \u201cThirteen days were spent in satisfying her desire. Then she went to her kingdom,\u201d never to be heard of again.<\/p>\n
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