Amazons

AMAZONS. - A mythical people of warrior women with customs and habits that the Greeks considered barbaric. Legend called them daughters of Ares and Harmonia, or Aphrodite. They inhabited Themiscyra, on the river Thermodon, along the southern coast of the Black Sea, but at a later period they were located in the Caucasus, near the Ethiopians, in Libya, in Thrace, in Illyria. They venerated Ares and Artemis; they were governed by a queen and did not tolerate men. The children born from their union with a neighboring people, to whom the Amazons went once a year, if male, were either sent to the fathers or maimed so that they would not become dangerous. The Amazons were devoted to hunting and war; armed with an axe, spear and semicircular shield, they made expeditions into Asia Minor or Greece and fought against the most famous heroes. Various cities of Asia Minor were said to have been founded by the Amazons: Myrina, Cyme, Mytilene, Smyrna, etc. At Ephesus they were said to have founded the temple of Artemis and to have been the first to enjoy its right of asylum. In Greece numerous tombs of Amazons were shown, especially in Attica, where they had besieged Athens because Theseus had abducted their queen Antiope. During the Trojan War Achilles was said to have fought against Penthesilea, queen of the Amazons who had come to the aid of the Trojans. The myth of Heracles knows of an expedition of the hero, alone or in the company of other heroes, to seize the belt of their queen. Modern scholars see in the Amazons either a remnant of an ancient matriarchy, or imaginary beings created by the fantasy of the Greeks.

Luisa Banti