Two and a half thousand years ago, the Spartan army, led by their king Kleomenes, attacked the city of Argos.
The men of Argos armed themselves and marched out of the city gates to meet the Spartan army, while the city’s best-known poet, Telesilla, sang her songs of loyalty and bravery.
The two armies clashed and battled, but the Spartans were the best trained, hardiest and most vicious warriors in ancient Greece, so they defeated the men of Argos.
Soon, most of the men of Argos lay injured and dying on the land they had tried to defend. The men who were still able to run took shelter in a sacred grove of trees.
The Spartans surrounded the grove, but they were unwilling to go in for fear of angering the gods. So Kleomenes tricked the men of Argos by calling out their names individually and claiming that their families in the city had paid ransoms for their safety. The men came out one by one, and the Spartans killed them one by one.
When the few men left in the grove finally realised they were being tricked and refused to come out, Kleomenes ordered the grove burned down.
Then the Spartans started to march on the city.
The women of Argos, who had watched from the walls, had seen their men defeated and murdered, and had sung Telesilla’s songs of lamentation, now gathered together.
Telesilla said, “We can expect no mercy from these dishonourable Spartans if they enter our city.”
One woman said, “We should run.”
Another said, “We should bar the gates.”
But Telesilla shook her head. “If we run, the Spartans will chase us and catch us. If we bar the gates, the Spartans will break them down, or burn our city like they burned the sacred grove. We must drive the Spartans away.”
“How?”
Telesilla explained her plan.
She posted all the children and slaves, all the old men and old women, round the top of the city walls, with pots to look like helmets and brooms to look like javelins.
Then she gathered all the spare armour, shields, helmets, swords and javelins in the city and armed all the able women.
She led them out of the city and she lined them up to defend the gates of Argos.
There was no time for Telesilla to recite a stirring poem about courage and honour, because the Spartans were already upon them.
The Spartans ran at the gates, their long spears and short swords still dripping with the blood of the men of Argos, their faces still smeared with ash from the burning sacred grove.
The women of Argos had never trained with weapons. They didn’t know how to throw a spear or wield a sword. But they did know how to stand together and how to stand strong. So they stood in a line with Telesilla at their centre, their shields overlapping and their blades pointing forward.
And they screamed their defiance.
As the first Spartan blows fell on the women of Argos, and the screams of defiance mixed with screams of pain, Kleomenes shouted: “What voices are those? Are those women’s voices? Are we fighting women?” He called on his men to halt.
Then Telesilla pulled off her helmet and said, “We are the women of Argos and we are defending our homes.”
Kleomenes frowned. He didn’t mind being called a bully or a tyrant or even a cheat. He didn’t mind how he won battles against other warriors. But he knew there was no way he could emerge from a battle against women looking strong and glorious.
If he beat them, no-one would respect it as a serious victory.
If they beat him, he would be remembered as the king defeated by an army of women.
So he ordered his men to step back and he led them away from the city of Argos.
Telesilla led the women of Argos back through the gates.
As Kleomenes marched his men towards Sparta, he blamed his failure to take Argos on the gods he’d annoyed when he burned the sacred grove.
But the people of Argos knew who had saved them. They put up a marble statue to Telesilla, a statue of a woman with books at her feet and a warrior’s helmet in her hand. A statue to celebrate a woman who knew the power of the word and the power of the sword.