Amazons
The Amazons are a nation of all-female warriors in Greek mythology. Herodotus placed them in a region bordering Scythia in Sarmatia. Notable queens of the Amazons are Penthesilea, who participated in the Trojan War, and her sister Hippolyte, whose magical girdle was the object of one of the labors of Hercules. Amazonian raiders were often depicted in battle with Greek warriors in amazonomachies in classical art .
In Hellenistic and Roman era historiography, there are various accounts of Amazon raids in Asia Minor. The Amazons become associated with various historical peoples throughout Late Antiquity. From the Early Modern period, their name has become a term for woman warriors in general.
Greek mythology
Amazons were said to have lived in Pontus, which is part of modern day Turkey near the shore of the Euxine Sea (the Black Sea). There they formed an independent kingdom under the government of a queen, often named Hippolyta ("loose, unbridled mare"). The Amazons were supposed to have founded many towns, amongst them Smyrna, Ephesus, Sinope, and Paphos. According to the dramatist Aeschylus, in the distant past they had lived in Scythia, at the Palus Maeotis ("Lake Maeotis", the Sea of Azov), but later moved to Themiscyra on the River Thermodon (the Terme river in northern Turkey). Herodotus called them Androktones ("killers of men"), and he stated that in the Scythian language they were called Oiorpata, which he asserted had this meaning.
In some versions of the myth, no men were permitted to have sexual encounters or 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, sent back to their fathers or exposed in the wilderness to fend for themselves; the females were kept and brought up by their mothers, and trained in agricultural pursuits, hunting, and the art of war.
In the Iliad, the Amazons were referred to as Antianeira ("those who fight like men").
The Amazons also make an appearance with the Argonauts, who came across the island of Lemnos on their way to the land of Colchis. They found Lemnos inhabited only by women and ruled by Queen Hypsipyle. They named the island Gynaikokratumene, a Greek word which roughly translates to "reigned by women". Apollonius of Rhodes writes that the women received Jason and his companions in battle array -- "Hypsipile assumed her father's arms, and led the van, terrific in her charms." The young queen tells them that Lemnos was invaded in the past and all of the men were killed. The Amazons invite the Argonauts to take their fallen husbands' places. What the Argonauts do not realize is that the men of the island were slain by their own womenfolk. The Argonauts fortunately were not persuaded to stay long. As they sailed away through the Hellespont and crept up the Euxine they are told -- "flee the Amazonian shore, Else Themyscira soon, with rude alarms, Had seen the assembled Amazons in arms."
The Amazons appear in Greek art of the Archaic period and 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). The tomb of Myrine is mentioned in the Iliad; later interpretation made of her an Amazon: according to Diodorus,[5] Queen Myrine led her Amazons to victory against 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 allies took his side again against the Greeks under their queen Penthesilea "of Thracian birth" (Quintus Smyrnaeus), who was slain by Achilles, in the Aethiopis[6] that continued the Iliad. (Quintus Smyrn. i.; Justin ii. 4; Virgil, Aeneid 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 Amazons is often commemorated in an entire genre of art, amazonomachy, in marble bas-reliefs such as from the Parthenon or the sculptures of the mausoleum of Halicarnassus.
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 Mithridates.
They are heard of in the time of Alexander, 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 dispute the claim, including the highly regarded secondary source, Plutarch. In his writing he makes mention of a moment 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 characterization of the Volscian warrior maiden Camilla in the Aeneid borrows heavily from the myth of the Amazons.
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