AMAZZONI

AMAZZONI. – A mythical people of warrior women whose customs and practices the Greeks regarded as barbarous. Legend held them to be daughters of Ares and Armonia, or Aphrodite. They inhabited Themiscyra, on the river Thermodon, along the southern coast of the Black Sea, but in later times they were located in the Caucasus, near the Ethiopians, in Libya, Thrace, and Illyria. They venerated Ares and Artemis; they were ruled by a queen and tolerated no men. Their sons, born of unions with a neighboring people, to whom the A. went once a year, were, if male, either sent to their fathers or maimed so that they would not become dangerous. The A. devoted themselves to hunting and war; armed with an axe, spear, and semicircular shield, they undertook 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 A.: 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 the right of asylum there. In Greece numerous tombs of A. were displayed, especially in Attica, where they had besieged Athens because Tesco had abducted their queen Antiope. During the Trojan War, Achilles was said to have fought against Penthesilea, queen of the A. who had come to aid the Trojans. The myth of Heracles recounts an expedition by the hero, alone or accompanied by other heroes, to seize the belt of their queen. Modern scholars see in the A. either a remnant of an ancient matriarchy or imaginary beings created by the Greeks’ imagination.