Deborah Castellano
What isn’t exciting about an Amazon? She’s depicted as wearing pants and carrying a shield in 470 BC artwork, already a modern woman! She can ride a horse and throw spears. She’s great at archery. She’s sexy. She’s powerful. She has killed before and will kill again! She lives with her fellow Amazon sisters plotting military battles to acquire more land. She visits her male Gargarean neighbors once a year to get pregnant. She’s fierce and everything about her threatens the patriarchy.
In folklore, Penthesilea was the daughter of Ares, the god of war and Otrera, her Amazon queen mother. Penthesilea became queen when her mother was killed in battle by Bellerophon. While out deer hunting with her sister, Hippolyta, Penthesilea accidentally killed her with a spear, causing herself so much pain and grief that she didn’t want to live anymore.
As the Amazons were a warrior culture, the only honorable way for Penthesilea to die was in battle. She decided to fight with Troy in the Trojan War, bringing twelve of her Amazon companions with her so she can prove how badass Amazons are. She sets her sights high and decides that she will kill Achilles or die trying. If she kills him, she gets glory and bragging rights for the rest of her life. If she is killed, then mission accomplished for joining her sister and atoning for her sister’s death.
She and her companions go into battle, and she is soon covered in the blood of her enemies from all the epic amounts of killing she does. Achilles is called into battle and she launches herself at him, but he immediately pierces her armor and stabs her directly in the heart and then kills her horse for good measure. Penthesilea falls to the ground. Achilles, being a class act, mocks her body because he killed her so fast in battle. It could be argued that Penthesilea had been busily slaying dudes all day and Achilles comes into battle hours later, fresh as a daisy and well rested, so it wasn’t the fairest of fights to begin with. When he takes off her helmet, presumably to spit in her face or some other act of being a well-bred kind of guy, he sees that Penthesilea is not a man, but an incredibly beautiful and incredibly dead woman. He immediately feels terrible about being a jerk about killing her and falls in love with her because he has trouble figuring out how to do life in the right order. When Thersites sees his bro shedding man tears over Penthesilea’s body, he gets right to mocking Achilles for having actual feelings, because his upbringing was apparently even worse than Achilles. Achilles has now had a rough day and is not in the mood for tomfoolery, so he kills Thersites because he doesn’t want to hear Thersites’ sass mouth. Then he buries Penthesilea with honors. I suppose the moral of the story is if you are going hunting with your sister, be aware who is standing where.
There’s still a lot of argument about whether or not Amazons actually existed or whether they were folkloric tales. The current discussion revolves around the Scythians who lived north and east of the Mediterranean on the steppes of Eurasia. They were not a society comprised solely of women, but the women there hunted, fought, rode horses, and used bows like our mythical Amazons. They lived in small tribes so everyone needed to be able to defend themselves, and their tribes depended on horses. The romantic story currently popular is that the Amazons were kidnapped by the Greeks from Turkey and put on a ship to go back to Greece. The Amazons bided their time and stealthily reclaimed their weapons and killed their captors. But, since the Amazons were horsewomen and not sailors, they didn’t know how to steer a ship.
Eventually the Amazons landed in Crimea and started going about their business of plundering, looting, and considering new land conquests. The Scythians started hearing stories of these invaders and became concerned. The Scythians were settled, moneyed, and also used horses and bows. They didn’t want their goods to be stolen from them. So the Scythians sent out a party to do some spying. When they were informed that these new neighbors were women who were also excellent archers and horsewomen, they were intrigued. Instead of sending off parties to stamp out this problem, they sent a party of handsome, eligible young bachelors to wine and dine the ladies. While the ladies had been enjoying themselves getting high around the campfire off of cannabis, tattooing each other, and being boisterous together, a bunch of cute guys were also of interest. While they didn’t speak the same language, the men made advances to the women.
The women who were interested would hang their bows over their wagons (the equivalent to putting a sock on the door) and they would get down with whomever struck their fancy. There were no monogamous agreements made during this exciting time of cross-cultural shagging, but when they started to be able to understand each other, the men suggested that the women marry them and come live in town and be proper Scythian wives. The Amazon women looked at each other, possibly giggling to each other under their breath until one of them said “Pass.” Listen, here’s the deal. We like things the way they are. We think you are fun to be around, you’re a good time in bed, you’re decent with riding and archery, and these are all things that are relevant to our interests. We like to party and you’re fun to party with. We’re not super interested in marriage and being tied down to a house. We want to continue living the way we’ve been living. How about instead of us coming to live with you, you come and live with us? And we’ll all be equal and it will be a good time. The guys thought about it and thought about how boring life was in town with their parents all up in their business and the women not being allowed to do anything awesome and decided that sounded like a very good proposal indeed.
Whether the Scythians were actually Amazons at one point, or whether they were folklore, the ancient Greeks were just as fascinated by them as our modern culture has had an on again off again love affair with the Amazon princess, Diana Prince, otherwise known as Wonder Woman. For the ancient Greeks, Amazons made plenty of appearances in artwork (even starting a kind of artwork known as Amazonomachy) and plays.
Amazons were exciting for both men and women in ancient Greek society (and even modern society!) because they didn’t have to obey societal rules that were enforced primarily by men. They didn’t have to act like a proper lady of that time period would behave, they could yell, kill, and be equal members of large scope battles like the Trojan War. They didn’t need to sit at home worrying if their husbands were going to come home from war, they didn’t have husbands, and they were already fighting in the wars. But in each of the known myths about Amazon queens, the queen always winds up killed by a man. Amazons are bad girls, they live outside the patriarchy. Bad girls have to be punished. They could be amazing warriors, they could be beautiful, they could be smart, but they couldn’t ever fit in Greek society so they had to be killed at the end of each story and bested by a man to remind Greek women that this power was dangerous and would only get you a bad end. This is still prevalent in current media. Think: Heathers, The Craft, Pretty Little Liars, and American Horror Story: Coven.
And … let’s get real for a moment, my fellow Amazon sisters. When Xena: Warrior Princess came out in the mid-1990s, I was absolutely fascinated by its depiction of Amazons. I was a teenager and they seemed like the coolest thing ever. They had amazing battle cries! They were culturally diverse! Their songs and dances were breathtaking! They were gorgeous and fierce, somehow primal and perfectly coifed at the same time! And oh, those masks that they wore! Seeing this depiction laid down the groundwork for my interest in women’s spirituality.