Amazons
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Wikipedia-Article "Amazons"
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This article is about the Amazon women of Greek mythology and similar cases. For other uses, see Amazons (disambiguation).
In Greek mythology, the Ἀμαζόνες, Amazons were either an ancient legendary nation of female warriors or a contemporary land of women at the outer edges of the world. The legends appear to have a nugget of factual basis in warrior women among the Scythians, but classical Greeks never ceased to be astounded at such role-reversals. In early modern usage, the word was often used to refer to strong and independent women, in contrast to conventional stereotypes of women as weak and passive (see "damsel in distress"), but now "amazon" in such contexts has self-ironic overtones.
(Compare "Valkyrie".)
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Etymology
The name Ἀμαζών is probably derived from an Iranian ethnonym, *ha-mazan-, originally meaning "warriors". A connected word is probably the Hesychius gloss ἁμαζακάραν· πολεμεῖν ("to make war", containing the Indo-Iranian root kar- "make" also in kar-ma).
The Greek variant of the name was connected by popular etymology to privative a + mazos, "without breast", connected with an aetiological tradition that Amazons had their right breast cut off or burnt out, in order that they might be able to use the bow more freely (contemporary Greeks drew the bowstring to the sternum); there is no indication of this practice in works of art, in which the Amazons are always represented with both breasts, although the right is frequently covered. Other suggested derivations were: a- (intensive) + mazos, breast, "full-breasted"; a (privative) and masso, touch, "not touching" (men); maza, a Circassian word said to signify "moon", has suggested their connection with the worship of a moon-goddess, perhaps the Asiatic representative of Artemis.
Amazons of Greek mythology
Amazons were said to have lived in Pontus near the shore of the Euxine Sea, where they formed an independent kingdom under the government of a queen, often named Hippolyta ("she lets her horses loose"). They were supposed to have founded many towns, amongst them Smyrna, Ephesus, Sinope, Paphos. According to another account, they originally came to the Thermodon from the Palus Maeotis ("Lake Maeotis", the Sea of Azov).
In some versions, no men were permitted to reside in Amazon country; but once a year, in order to prevent their race from dying out, they visited the Gargareans, a neighbouring tribe. The male children who were the result of these visits were either put to death or sent back to their fathers; the females were kept and brought up by their mothers, and trained in agricultural pursuits, hunting, and the art of war (Strabo xi. p. 503).
In the Iliad, the Amazons were referred to as Antianeira ("those who fight like men"). Herodotus called them Androktones ("killers of men").
The Amazons appear in connection with several Greek legends. They invaded Lycia, but were defeated by Bellerophon, who was sent out against them by Iobates, the king of that country, in the hope that he might meet his death at their hands (Iliad, vi. 186). According to Diodorus, Queen Myrine led them to victory against the Atlanteans, Libya and much of Gorgon.
They attacked the Phrygians, who were assisted by Priam, then a young man (Iliad, iii. 189). Although in his later years, towards the end of the Trojan War, his old opponents took his side again against the Greeks under their queen Penthesilea, who was slain by Achilles (Quint. Smyr. i.; Justin ii. 4; Virgil, Aen. i. 490).
One of the tasks imposed upon Heracles by Eurystheus was to obtain possession of the girdle of the Amazonian queen Hippolyte (Apollodorus ii. 5). He was accompanied by his friend Theseus, who carried off the princess Antiope, sister of Hippolyte, an incident which led to a retaliatory invasion of Attica, in which Antiope perished fighting by the side of Theseus. In some versions, however, Theseus marries Hippolyta and in others, he marries Antiope and she does not die. The battle between the Athenians and Amazonians is often commemorated in an entire genre of art, amazonomachy, marble carvings such as from the Parthenon.
The Amazons are also said to have undertaken an expedition against the island of Leuke, at the mouth of the Danube, where the ashes of Achilles had been deposited by Thetis. The ghost of the dead hero appeared and so terrified the horses, that they threw and trampled upon the invaders, who were forced to retire. Pompey is said to have found them in the army of Mithradates.
They are heard of in the time of Alexander the Great, when some of the great king's biographers make mention of Amazon Queen Thalestris visiting him and becoming a mother by him. However, several other biographers of Alexander totally dispute the claim, including the highly regarded secondary source, Plutarch. In his writing he makes mention of when Alexander's secondary naval commander, Onesicritus, was reading the Amazon passage of his Alexander history to King Lysimachus of Thrace who was on the original expedition, the king smiled at him and said "And where was I, then?"
The Roman writer Virgil's character of the Volscian warrior maiden Camilla in the Aeneid borrows heavily from the myth of the Amazonian.
Scythian origins
In a recent excavation of Sarmatian sites by Dr. Jeannine Davis-Kimball, a tomb was found wherein female warriors were buried, thus lending some credence to the myths about the Amazons. Following the excavation in 2003 by Dr. Davis-Kimball, she and Dr. Joachim Burger compared the genetic evidence from the site with the nomadic Kazakhs, and have found a striking genetic link – verified later by the University of Cambridge [1]
Before modern archaeology uncovered some of the Scythian burials of warrior-maidens entombed under kurgans in the Altai region of Siberia, giving concrete form at last to the Greek tales of mounted Amazons, the origin of the story of the Amazons has been the subject of speculation among classics scholars. In the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica speculation ranged along the following lines.
While some regard the Amazons as a purely mythical people, others assume an historical foundation for them. The deities worshipped by them were Ares (who is consistently assigned to them as a god of war, and as a god of Thracian and generally northern origin) and Artemis, not the usual Greek goddess of that name, but an Asiatic deity in some respects her equivalent. It is conjectured that the Amazons were originally the temple-servants and priestesses (hierodulae) of this goddess; and that the removal of the breast corresponded with the self-mutilation of the god Attis and the galli, Roman priests of Cybele. Another theory is that, as the knowledge of geography extended, travellers brought back reports of tribes ruled entirely by women, who carried out the duties which elsewhere were regarded as peculiar to man, in whom alone the rights of nobility and inheritance were vested, and who had the supreme control of affairs. Hence arose the belief in the Amazons as a nation of female warriors, organized and governed entirely by women. According to J. Vurtheim (De Ajacis origine, 1907), the Amazons were of Greek origin: "all the Amazons were Dianas, as Diana herself was an Amazon". It has been suggested that the fact of the conquest of the Amazons being assigned to the two famous heroes of Greek mythology, Heracles and Theseus – who in the tasks assigned to them were generally opposed to monsters and beings impossible in themselves, but possible as illustrations of permanent danger and damage – shows that they were mythical illustrations of the dangers which beset the Greeks on the coasts of Asia Minor; rather perhaps, it may be intended to represent the conflict between the Greek culture of the colonies on the Black Sea and the barbarism of the native inhabitants.
Herodotus reported that the Sarmatians/Sauromatians were descendants of Amazons and Scythians. Their Scythian/Saka/Cimmerian/Gomerian origins are further proved by their origins from Thermodon's Scythians who invaded there coming from around the Sea of Azov and their use of the bow and arrow as their primary weapon as well as fighting on horseback.
Medieval and Renaissance authors credit the Amazons with the invention of the battle-axe. This is probably related to the Sagaris, an axe-like weapon associated with both Amazons and Scythian tribes by Greek authors (see also Aleksandrovo kurgan). Paulus Hector Mair expresses astonishment that such a "manly weapon" should have been invented by a "tribe of women", but he accepts the attribution out of respect for his authority, Johannes Aventinus.
Amazons in Greek art
In works of art, combats between Amazons and Greeks are placed on the same level as and often associated with combats of Greeks and centaurs. The belief in their existence, however, having been once accepted and introduced into the national poetry and art, it became necessary to surround them as far as possible with the appearance of not unnatural beings. Their occupation was hunting and war; their arms the bow, spear, axe, a half shield, nearly in the shape of a crescent, called pelta, and in early art a helmet, the model before the Greek mind having apparently been the goddess Athena. In later art they approach the model of Artemis, wearing a thin dress, girt high for speed; while on the later painted vases their dress is often peculiarly Persian – that is, close-fitting trousers and a high cap called the kidaris. They were usually on horseback but sometimes on foot. They can also be identified in vase paintings by the fact that they are wearing one earring. The battle between Theseus and the Amazons is a favourite subject on the friezes of temples (e.g. the reliefs from the frieze of the temple of Apollo at Bassae, now in the British Museum), vases and sarcophagus reliefs; at Athens it was represented on the shield of the statue of Athena Parthenos, on wall-paintings in the Theseum and in the Poikile Stoa. Many of the sculptors of antiquity, including Pheidias, Polyclitus, Cresilas and Phradmon, executed statues of Amazons; and there are many existing reproductions of these.
Legendary Amazons from Greek myth
- Ainia
- Antianara
- Antibrote
- Antiope
- Asteria
- Cleite
- Helene
- Hippolyte
- Melanippe
- Otrera
- Penthesilea
- Thalestris
- Thebe
Amazon-like figures in history and folklore
Armed women have often acted as royal bodyguards throughout history. Chandragupta Maurya (322–298 BC), the first emperor to develop a centralized state in India, had a personal guard composed of giant Greek women. Female royal guards re-appear 2000 years later in the history of India as guards for the Nizams of Deccan and Hyderabad. And on the island of Sri Lanka, the Kandy royal family had a royal guard of female archers. In Europe, Celtic and Germanic tribes often had women fighting with their husbands. Tacitus tells us that Boadicea had more women than men in her army.
In Scandinavia, women who did not yet have the responsibility for raising a family could take up arms and live like warriors. They were called shieldmaidens and many of them figure in Norse mythology. One of the most famous shieldmaidens was Hervor and she figures in the cycle of the magic sword Tyrfing. The Danish chronicler Saxo Grammaticus relates that when the Swedish king Sigurd Ring and the Danish king Harald Wartooth met at the Battle of Bråvalla, 300 shieldmaidens fought on the Danish side led by Visna. Saxo relates that the shieldmaidens fought with small shields and long swords.
Similarly, the Valkyries of Norse mythology are minor female deities, who serve Odin. The name means choosers of the slain. The valkyries' purpose was to choose the most heroic of those who had died in battle and to carry them off to Valhalla where they became einherjar. This was necessary because Odin needed warriors to fight at his side at the preordained battle at the end of the world, Ragnarök.
A legend which may be based on the Greek Amazons appears in the history of Bohemia. As the story goes, a large band of women, lead by a certain Vlasta, carried on war against the duke of Bohemia, and enslaved or put to death all men who fell into their hands; eventually, they were mercilessly defeated by the duke. In the 16th century the Spanish explorer Orellana asserted that he had come into conflict with fighting women in South America on the Marañón River, which was named after them the Amazon or river of the Amazons, although others derive its name from the Indian amassona (boat-destroyer), applied to the tidal phenomenon known as the "bore".
The armored warrior maiden (whose gender is often unsuspected) is a frequent character in the European chivalric epic. The most famous of these female knights is Bradamante -- daughter of Aymon, sister to the knight Renaud de Montauban (Rinaldo, Ranaldo) and legendary ancestor to the house of Este -- who is destined to marry the knight Ruggiero (or Rugiero). Her adventures are a major element in the Italian Renaissance epics Orlando Innamorato by Matteo Maria Boiardo and its continuation Orlando furioso by Ariosto. A similar character is the pagan warrior knight Clorinda who battles against the Christian crusaders in Torquato Tasso's epic Jerusalem Delivered. The vogue of such female knights in literature would continue though the seventeenth century and inspired not only dramatic recreations but also actual military feats (such as the duchess of Montpensier's participation in the Fronde).
The Dahomey Amazons were a 6000 strong military unit of Dahomey (now Benin) in West Africa who were active from the 16th to the late 19th century. They were largely successful in their battles with neighboring kingdoms, and were finally defeated by the French. Libya has a long history of Amazon women, which probably pre-dates the Greek Amazons. Even today, Gadaffi is guarded by female soldiers. Other African ethnic groups who used fighting women were the Igbo and Fulani, who integrated the women into their armies.
In the kingdom of Siam in the 19th century, the king had a personal battalion of 400 spear-wielding women. They were chosen from the most beautiful women of the country, and were said to be excellent spear-throwers, though they were regarded as too valuable to be sent to war. Other peoples who had female fighters include the Arabs, Australian Aborigines, Berbers, Chinese, Kurds, Filipinos, Māori, Micronesians, Papua New Guinea, Rajputs, Soviets, Israelis and VietCong. As of the dawn of the 21st-Century, most members of NATO and the Russian Federation have female combatants.
Around 400 women took part as soldiers in the American Civil War. For notable cases of women who have become soldiers, reference may be made to Mary Anne Talbot and Hannah Snell.
Modern depiction of Amazons
It has been noted that until the 20th century, Amazons were typically depicted in literature as an alien adversary that threatened the masculinity of heroes. As such, the typical goal of the heroes has been to defeat and humiliate them as a way of reasserting male superiority.
In the 20th century, Amazons were depicted with increasing sympathy. Today, the typical depiction of the characters is as an isolated community of powerful and beautiful warriors whom the male heroes are challenged to earn their respect to become valuable allies. The most famous modern example of an Amazon is the superhero, Wonder Woman. Amazons were also frequently featured on the Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys television series. Robert E. Howard's minor character Red Sonja, who was fleshed out more in the Conan the Barbarian comic books, and subsequently, in her own movie, also owes much to this modern sympathetic treatment of Amazons. An episode of Futurama had a planet of giant Amazon-like women where the cast gets stranded. Esther Freisner has published a series of anthologies on the theme of Chicks in Chainmail, containing humorous takes on Amazon characters by a number of science fiction and fantasy writers.
The comic book series Y: The Last Man, in which every male on Earth is wiped out in a mysterious plague, includes a hyper-feminist cult called the Daughters of the Amazon, who believe that Mother Earth cleansed itself of the "aberration" of the Y chromosome.
A Buck Rogers episode, Planet of the Amazon Women features similar women.
A Star Trek: The Next Generation episode features similar women in "Angel One". These control a whole planet.
Zeus, Master of Olympus, a computer game, features these women under the command of Artemis who is, depending on the senario/campaign played, either the player's allies or deadly enemies, since Artemis can either "bless" the game player's leader or "curse" the game player's leader, depending on the senario/campaign played. This game features its own website. "Independent" Amazons are also featured as allies or enemies in some senarios/campaigns. To earn them as allies, the player can conquer them outright or create a powerful military force, in which they'll swear fealty to the player's leader. Scenarios include material from the Greek and Roman mythologies, military campaigns, economic campaigns, and "sandbox" campaigns. In this game, the game's leader creates a small town while turning it into a powerful kingdom and protecting it from rivals. Depending on the campaign played, they can start out as allies and then decide to become hostile. Their disposition also depends how the player treats them. Treat them badly and they'll come for you, treat them royally, they'll usually become your allies, if you have a powerful military. Conquer them, both as a option and/or part of a campaign, they're usually your vassals, but after conquest, it is recomended that these women be treated royally.
A Sliders Episode depicts women similar to these women in control of a Earth, due to a germ warfare virus killing most of the men, and causing the survivors to be sterile, and left the women unaffected by it. When the male Sliders were found, they were mistaken for men that somehow escaped the plague, not knowing that they're aliens from another dimension, which they were.
A Stargate SG-1 episode, Birthright, has the military unit from Earth asking Amazon women on another planet for aid against spaceborne and dimensional enemies.
A Thundarr the Barbarian episode,Attack of the Amazon Women, depicts these women located in what was left of Mt. Rushmore. He and his companions defeated a female meglomaniac who had found a "ancient" nuclear warhead, and intended to use it in her attempt at conquest.
Another computer game, Diablo II, depicts these women in it AS a combat class.
In the Star Trek:TOS, a planet, Cygnet XIV is controlled by these women. It is referred to here in the ST:TOS episode Tomorrow Is Yesterday. They overhauled the Enterprise`s computer. It kept calling The Captain "Dear" while he and the crew had to deal with being mistaken for a UFO and the proverbial "green men" by a US Air Force Captain who was assigned to shoot this ship down.
See also
External links
- Secrets of the Dead: Amazon Warrior Women (PBS) - includes information on genetic and archaeological study of recent finds of skeletons in tombs
- Amazon Nation The Amazons existed. But, their history has been long lost, or else so corrupted by later peoples who would rather we forgot them they are barely recognizable. This is a version of a book in progress, so you may notice differences if you were to compare it to a printed version.
- Herodotus on the Amazons
- Herodotus via Gutenberg
- [2] The Amazons existed. They were originally warrior women of Scythians. Greeks later added them to their mythology even sometimes deitifying some of them.
- The Amazon Connection - A guide to online resources about Amazons, aiming to cover the entire spectrum of meaning that has been attributed to the term Amazon.
- Amazons International - A newsletter dedicated to the image of the Amazon or female hero in fiction and in fact, in art and literature, in the physiques and feats of female athletes, and in gender-related and sexual orientations.
- Man-Handlers: Feminism in Ancient Greece by Declan Jenkins, New College, Oxford, in The Owl Journal
- Perseus
- THE AMAZONS IN GREEK LEGEND
- Straight Dope
- Amazons of Mythology Information on the European and North African Amazons of Greek mythology, comments on archaeological findings, plus an article on sites of interest in Turkey for modern travelers.
References
- A. D. Mordtmann, Die Amazonen (1862)
- W. Stricker, Die A. in Sage und Geschichte (1868)
- A. Klugmann, Die A. in der attischen Literatur und Kunst (1875)
- H. L. Krause, Die Amazonensage (1893)
- F. G. Bergmann, Les Amazones dans l'histoire et dans la fable (1853)
- P. Lacour, Les Amazones (1901)
- articles in Pauly-Wissowa's Realencyclopadie, and Roscher's Lexikon der Mythologie
- Grote, Hist. of Greece, pt. i. ch. 11.
- J. A. Salmonson, The Encyclopedia of Amazons (1991), ISBN 0385423667
Sources
About twenty-five hundred years ago, Herodotus in Histories in book four records:
110. About the Sauromatai the following tale is told:--When the Hellenes had fought with the Amazons,--now the Amazons are called by the Scythians /Oiorpata/, which name means in the Hellenic tongue "slayers of men," for "man" they call /oior/, and /pata/ means "to slay,"--then, as the story goes, the Hellenes, having conquered them in the battle at the Thermodon, were sailing away and conveying with them in three ships as many Amazons as they were able to take prisoners. These in the open sea set upon the men and cast them out of the ships; but they knew nothing about ships, nor how to use rudders or sails or oars, and after they had cast out the men they were driven about by wave and wind and came to that part of the Maiotian lake where Cremnoi stands; now Cremnoi is in the land of the free Scythians. There the Amazons disembarked from their ships and made their way into the country, and having met first with a troop of horses feeding they seized them, and mounted upon these they plundered the property of the Scythians.
111. The Scythians meanwhile were not able to understand the matter, for they did not know either their speech or their dress or the race to which they belonged, but were in wonder as to whence they had come and thought that they were men, of an age corresponding to their appearance: and finally they fought a battle against them, and after the battle the Scythians got possession of the bodies of the dead, and thus they discovered that they were women. They took counsel therefore and resolved by no means to go on trying to kill them, but to send against them the youngest men from among themselves, making conjecture of the number so as to send just as many men as there were women. These were told to encamp near them, and do whatsoever they should do; if however the women should come after them, they were not to fight but to retire before them, and when the women stopped, they were to approach near and encamp. This plan was adopted by the Scythians because they desired to have children born from them.
112. The young men accordingly were sent out and did that which had been commanded them: and when the Amazons perceived that they had not come to do them any harm, they let them alone; and the two camps approached nearer to one another every day: and the young men, like the Amazons, had nothing except their arms and their horses, and got their living, as the Amazons did, by hunting and by taking booty.
113. Now the Amazons at midday used to scatter abroad either one by one or by two together, dispersing to a distance from one another to ease themselves; and the Scythians also having perceived this did the same thing: and one of the Scythians came near to one of those Amazons who were apart by themselves, and she did not repulse him but allowed him to lie with her: and she could not speak to him, for they did not understand one another's speech, but she made signs to him with her hand to come on the following day to the same place and to bring another with him, signifying to him that there should be two of them, and that she would bring another with her. The young man therefore, when he returned, reported this to the others; and on the next day he came himself to the place and also brought another, and he found the Amazon awaiting him with another in her company. Then hearing this the rest of the young men also in their turn tamed for themselves the remainder of the Amazons;
114, and after this they joined their camps and lived together, each man having for his wife her with whom he had had dealings at first; and the men were not able to learn the speech of the women, but the women came to comprehend that of the men. So when they understood one another, the men spoke to the Amazons as follows: "We have parents and we have possessions; now therefore let us no longer lead a life of this kind, but let us go away to the main body of our people and dwell with them; and we will have you for wives and no others." They however spoke thus in reply: "We should not be able to live with your women, for we and they have not the same customs. We shoot with bows and hurl javelins and ride horses, but the works of women we never learnt; whereas your women do none of these things which we said, but stay in the waggons and work at the works of women, neither going out to the chase nor anywhither else. We therefore should not be able to live in agreement with them: but if ye desire to keep us for your wives and to be thought honest men, go to your parents and obtain from them your share of the goods, and then let us go and dwell by ourselves."
115. The young men agreed and did this; and when they had obtained the share of the goods which belonged to them and had returned back to the Amazons, the women spoke to them as follows: "We are possessed by fear and trembling to think that we must dwell in this place, having not only separated you from your fathers, but also done great damage to your land. Since then ye think it right to have us as your wives, do this together with us,--come and let us remove from this land and pass over the river Tana also".
116. They crossed over the Tana rising sun for three days' journey from Tana North Wind for three days' journey from the Maiotian lake: and having arrived at the place where they are now settled, they took up their abode there: and from thenceforward the women of the Sauromatai practise their ancient way of living, going out regularly on horseback to the chase both in company with the men and apart from them, and going regularly to war, and wearing the same dress as the men.
117. And the Sauromatai make use of the Scythian tongue, speaking it barbarously however from the first, since the Amazons did not learn it thoroughly well. As regards marriages their rule is this, that no maiden is married until she has slain a man of their enemies; and some of them even grow old and die before they are married, because they are not able to fulfil the requirement of the law." [3]
This article incorporates text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, which is in the public domain.
