Aella (Amazon)

In Greek mythology, the Amazons (Ancient Greek: Ἀμαζόνες ''Amazónes'', singular Ἀμαζών ''Amazōn'', via Latin ''Amāzon, -ŏnis'') are portrayed in a number of ancient epic poems and legends, such as the Labours of Hercules, the ''Argonautica'' and the ''Iliad''. They were a group of female warriors and hunters, who beat men in physical agility and strength, in archery, riding skills, and the arts of combat. Their society was closed for men and they only raised their daughters, either killing their sons or returning them to their fathers, with whom they would only socialize briefly in order to reproduce.

Courageous and fiercely independent, the Amazons, commanded by their queen, regularly undertook extensive military expeditions into the far corners of the world, from Scythia to Thrace, Asia Minor and the Aegean Islands, reaching as far as Arabia and Egypt. Besides military raids, the Amazons are also associated with the foundation of temples and the establishment of numerous ancient cities like Ephesos, Cyme, Smyrna, Sinope, Myrina, Magnesia, Pygela, etc.

The texts of the original myths envisioned the homeland of the Amazons at the periphery of the then known world. Various claims to the exact place ranged from provinces in Asia Minor (Lycia, Caria etc.) to the steppes around the Black Sea, or even Libya. However, authors most frequently referred to Pontus in northern Anatolia, on the southern shores of the Black Sea, as the independent Amazon kingdom where the Amazon queen resided at her capital Themiscyra, on the banks of the Thermodon river.

Palaephatus, who himself might have been a fictional character, attempted to rationalize the Greek myths in his work '' On Unbelievable Tales''. He suspected that the Amazons were probably men who were mistaken for women by their enemies because they wore clothing that reached their feet, tied up their hair in headbands, and shaved their beards. Probably the first in a long line of skeptics, he rejected any real basis for them, reasoning that because they did not exist during his time, most probably they did nοt exist in the past either.

Decades of archaeological discoveries of burial sites of female warriors, including royalty, in the Eurasian Steppes suggest that the horse cultures of the Scythian, Sarmatian and Hittite peoples likely inspired the Amazon myth. In 2019, a grave with multiple generations of female Scythian warriors, armed and in golden headdresses, was found near Russia's Voronezh.

Etymology

Origin of the name

The origin of the word is uncertain. It may be derived from an Iranian ethnonym ''*ha-mazan-'' 'warriors', a word attested indirectly through a derivation, a denominal verb in Hesychius of Alexandria's gloss ("': 'to make war' in Persian"), where it appears together with the Indo-Iranian root ''*kar-'' 'make'.

It may alternatively be a Greek word descended from ' 'manless, without husbands' (alpha privative combined with a derivation from '' *man-'' cognate with Proto-Balto-Slavic '' *mangjá-'', found in Czech ''muž'') has been proposed, an explanation deemed "unlikely" by Hjalmar Frisk. A further explanation proposes Iranian *''ama-janah'' 'virility-killing' as source.

Among the ancient Greeks, the term ''Amazon'' was given a folk etymology as originating from (ἀμαζός 'breastless'), connected with an etiological tradition once claimed by Marcus Justinus who alleged that Amazons had their right breast cut off or burnt out. There is no indication of such a practice in ancient works of art, in which the Amazons are always represented with both breasts, although one is frequently covered. According to Philostratus Amazon babies were not fed just with the right breast. Author Adrienne Mayor suggests that the false etymology led to the myth.

Alternative terms

Herodotus used the terms ''Androktones'' () 'killers/slayers of men' and ''Androleteirai'' () 'destroyers of men, murderesses'. Amazons are called ''Antianeirai'' () 'equivalent to men' and Aeschylus used ''Styganor'' () 'those who loathe all men'.

In his work ''Prometheus Bound'' and in '' The Suppliants'', Aeschylus called the Amazons "...τὰς ἀνάνδρους κρεοβόρους τ᾽ Ἀμαζόνας" 'the unwed, flesh-devouring Amazons'. In the Hippolytus tragedy, Phaedra calls Hippolytus, 'the son of the horse-loving Amazon' (). In his Dionysiaca, Nonnus calls the Amazons of Dionysus ''Androphonus'' () 'men slaying'.
Herodotus stated that in the Scythian language, the Amazons were called ''Oiorpata'', which he explained as being from ''oior'' 'man' and ''pata'' 'to slay'.

Historiography

The ancient Greeks never had any doubts that the Amazons were, or had been, real. Not the only people enchanted by warlike women of nomadic cultures, such exciting tales also come from ancient Egypt, Persia, India, and China. Greek heroes of old had encounters with the queens of their martial society and fought them. However, their original home was not exactly known, thought to be in the obscure lands beyond the civilized world. As a result, for centuries scholars believed the Amazons to be purely imaginary, although
there were various proposals for a historical nucleus of the Amazons in Greek historiography. Some authors preferred comparisons to cultures of Asia Minor or even Minoan Crete. The most obvious historical candidates are Lycia and Scythia and Sarmatia in line with the account by Herodotus. In his Histories (5th century BC) Herodotus claims that the ''Sauromatae'' (predecessors of the Sarmatians), who ruled the lands between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea, arose from a union of Scythians and Amazons.

Herodotus also observed rather unusual customs among the Lycians of southwest Asia Minor. The Lycians obviously followed matrilineal rules of descent, virtue, and status. They named themselves along their maternal family line and a child's status was determined by the mother's reputation. This remarkably high esteem of women and legal regulations based on maternal lines, still in effect in the 5th century BC in the Lycian regions that Herodotus had traveled to, lent him the idea that these people were descendants of the mythical Amazons.

Modern historiography no longer relies exclusively on textual and artistic material, but also on the vast archaeological evidence of over a thousand nomad graves from steppe territories from the Black Sea all the way to Mongolia. Spectacular discoveries of battle-scarred female skeletons buried with their weapons (bows and arrows, quivers, and spears) prove that women warriors were not merely figments of imagination, but the product of the Scythian/Sarmatian horse-centered lifestyle.

Mythology

According to myth, Otrera, the first Amazon queen, is the offspring of a romance between Ares the god of war and the nymph Harmonia of the Akmonian Wood, and as such a demigoddess.

Early records refer to two events in which Amazons appeared prior to the Trojan War (before 1250 BC). Within the epic context, Bellerophon, Greek hero, and grandfather of the brothers and Trojan War veterans ''Glaukos and Sarpedon'', faced Amazons during his stay in Lycia, when King Iobates sent Bellerophon to fight the Amazons, hoping they would kill him, yet Bellerophon slew them all. The youthful King Priam of Troy fought on the side of the Phrygians, who were attacked by Amazons at the Sangarios River.

Amazons in the Trojan War

There are Amazon characters in Homer's Trojan War epic poem, the ''Iliad'', one of the oldest surviving texts in Europe ( around 8th century BC).
The now lost epic ''Aethiopis'' (probably by Arctinus of Miletus, 6th century BC), like the ''Iliad'' and several other epics, is one of the works that in combination form the Trojan War Epic Cycle. In one of the few references to the text, an Amazon force under queen Penthesilea, who was of Thracian birth, came to join the ranks of the Trojans after Hector's death and initially put the Greeks under serious pressure. Only after the greatest effort and the help of the reinvigorated hero Achilles, the Greeks eventually triumphed. Penthesilea died fighting the mighty Achilles in single combat. Homer himself deemed the Amazon myths to be common knowledge all over Greece, which suggests that they had already been known for some time before him. He was also convinced that the Amazons lived not at its fringes, but somewhere in or around Lycia in Asia Minor - a place well within the Greek world.

Troy is mentioned in the ''Iliad'' as the place of Myrine's death. Later identified as an Amazon queen, according to Diodorus (1st century BC), the Amazons under her rule invaded the territories of the Atlantians, defeated the army of the Atlantian city of Cerne, and razed the city to the ground.

In Scythia