View source for Amazons

{{Short description|Female warriors and hunters in Greek mythology}}
{{Other uses}}
[[File:Amazzone ferita - Musei Capitolini.jpg|thumb|Wounded Amazon of the Capitoline Museums, Rome]]
[[File:Produzione greca o magnogreca, sarcofago delle amazzoni, 350-325 a.C. ca, da tarquinia 05.JPG|thumb|A Greek fighting an Amazon; detail from painted [[sarcophagus]] found in Italy, 350–325 BCE]]
[[File:AmazonBattle.jpg|thumb|upright=.8|"Amazon preparing for battle" (Queen [[Antiope (Amazon)|Antiope]] or [[Hippolyta]]) or "Armed Venus", by [[Pierre-Eugène-Emile Hébert]], 1860, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.]]
The '''Amazons''' ([[Ancient Greek]]: {{Lang|grc-Grek|Ἀμαζόνες|italic=no}} ''{{Lang|grc-latn|Amazónes}}'', singular {{Lang|grc-Grek|Ἀμαζών|italic=no}} ''{{Lang|grc-latn|Amazōn}}''; in [[Latin]] ''{{Lang|la|Amāzon}}'', ''{{Lang|la|-ŏnis}}'') were a people in [[Greek mythology]], portrayed in a number of ancient [[epic poem]]s and legends, such as the [[Labours of Hercules|Labours of Heracles]], the ''[[Argonautica]]''  and the ''[[Iliad]]''. They were female warriors and hunters, known for their physical agility, strength, archery, riding skills, and the arts of combat. Their society was closed to men and they raised only their daughters, returning their sons to their fathers with whom they would only socialize briefly in order to reproduce.<ref>{{cite web |author=Silver |first=Carly |date=July 29, 2019 |title=The Amazons Were More Than A Myth: Archaeological And Written Evidence For The Ancient Warrior Women |url=https://allthatsinteresting.com/amazon-women |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210112223252/https://allthatsinteresting.com/amazon-women |archive-date=January 12, 2021 |access-date=January 10, 2021 |publisher=ATI}}</ref><ref name="admay">{{cite book |author=Adrienne Mayor |url=https://archive.org/details/amazonsliveslege0000mayo |title=The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World |date=September 22, 2014 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=9780691147208 |access-date=January 12, 2021 |url-access=registration}}</ref>

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]].<ref name=mai>{{cite web |url= https://www.maicar.com/GML/AMAZONS.html | title= AMAZONS |publisher= maicar | date= | author= Carlos Parada, Maicar Förlag   | access-date= January 8, 2021}}</ref> Besides military raids, the Amazons are also associated with the foundation of temples and the establishment of numerous ancient cities like [[Ephesos]], [[Cyme (Aeolis)|Cyme]], [[Smyrna]], [[Sinop, Turkey|Sinope]], [[Myrina (Aeolis)|Myrina]], [[Magnesia ad Sipylum|Magnesia]], [[Pygela]], etc.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/view/bsb10432822?page=17 | title= Die Amazonen : ein Beitrag zur unbefangenen Prüfung und Würdigung der ältesten Überlieferungen |publisher= Reader digitale sammlungen | date= | author= Andreas David Mordtmann   | access-date= January 8, 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.thevintagenews.com/2019/08/05/amazon-women/ | title= The Fierce Amazon Warrior Women – What's Real and What's Myth |publisher= Vintage news| date=August 5, 2019  | author= Ian Harvey  | access-date= January 10, 2021}}</ref>

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]]. However, authors most frequently referred to [[Pontus (region)|Pontus]] in [[Black Sea Region|northern Anatolia]], on the southern shores of the Black Sea, as the independent Amazon kingdom where the Amazon queen resided at her capital [[Themiscyra (Pontus)|Themiscyra]], on the banks of the [[Thermodon]] river.<ref name="mac">{{cite web |author=Cartwright |first=Mark |date=November 14, 2019 |title=Amazon Women |url=https://www.worldhistory.org/amazon/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210410212122/https://www.worldhistory.org/amazon/ |archive-date=Apr 10, 2021 |access-date=January 8, 2021 |publisher=[[World History Encyclopedia]]}}</ref>

Decades of archaeological discoveries of burial sites of female warriors, including royalty, in the [[Eurasian Steppe]]s suggest that the [[horse culture]]s of the [[Scythian]], [[Sarmatians|Sarmatian]], and [[Hittites|Hittite]] peoples likely inspired the Amazon myth.<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Simon |first1=Worrall |date=October 28, 2014 |title=Amazon Warriors Did Indeed Fight and Die Like Men |url=http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/10/141029-amazons-scythians-hunger-games-herodotus-ice-princess-tattoo-cannabis/ |magazine=National Geographic |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160920203137/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/10/141029-amazons-scythians-hunger-games-herodotus-ice-princess-tattoo-cannabis/ |archive-date=Sep 20, 2016 |access-date=13 September 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Foreman |first1=Amanda |date=April 2014 |title=The Amazon Women: Is There Any Truth Behind the Myth? |url=http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/amazon-women-there-any-truth-behind-myth-180950188/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160909070346/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/amazon-women-there-any-truth-behind-myth-180950188/ |archive-date=Sep 9, 2016 |access-date=14 September 2016 |website=Smithsonian |publisher=Smithsonian Institution}}</ref> In 2019, a grave with multiple generations of female Scythian warriors, armed and in golden headdresses, was found near [[Voronezh]] in southwestern Russia.<ref>{{Cite news | url=https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/.premium.MAGAZINE-amazon-warrior-women-russia-archaeology-scythian-greece-1.8327358 |title = Tomb with Three Generations of 'Amazon' Warrior Women Found in Russia|newspaper = Haaretz|date = 2 January 2020|last1 = Schuster|first1 = Ruth}}</ref>

==Name==
===Etymology===
[[File:Departure of the Amazons MET DP318355.jpg|thumb|''Departure of the Amazons'', by [[Claude Deruet]], 1620, [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]], New York]]
The origin of the word is uncertain.<ref name="Blok1995">{{cite book|author=J. H. Blok|title=The Early Amazons: Modern and Ancient Perspectives on a Persistent Myth|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vHzLgcqHzQcC|year=1995|publisher=BRILL|isbn=90-04-10077-6}}</ref> It may be derived from an [[Iranian peoples|Iranian]] [[ethnonym]] ''*ha-mazan-'' 'warriors', a word attested indirectly through a derivation, a denominal verb in [[Hesychius of Alexandria]]'s gloss {{lang|grc|"ἁμαζακάραν· πολεμεῖν. Πέρσαι"}} ("''{{transliteration|grc|hamazakaran}}'': 'to make war' in Persian"), where it appears together with the [[Indo-Iranian languages|Indo-Iranian]] root ''*kar-'' 'make'.<ref name="Blok1995"/>

It may alternatively be a Greek word descended from {{lang|ine-x-proto|*n̥-mn̥gʷ-yō-nós}} 'manless, without husbands' ([[alpha privative]] combined with a derivation from ''[[Man (word)|*man-]]'' cognate with [[Proto-Balto-Slavic language|Proto-Balto-Slavic]] ''[[wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Balto-Slavic/mangjás|*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.<ref>{{harvnb|Hinge|2005|pp=94–98}}</ref>

Among the [[Ancient Greece|ancient Greeks]], the term ''Amazon'' was popularly [[folk etymology|folk etymologized]] as originating from the Greek {{lang|el|ἀμαζός}}, ''{{Lang|grc-latn|amazos}}'' ('breastless'), from -''a'' ('without') and ''{{Lang|grc-latn|mazos}}'', a variant of ''{{Lang|grc-latn|mastos}}'' ('breast'),<ref>{{Cite web |title=amazon {{!}} Etymology, origin and meaning of the name amazon by etymonline |url=https://www.etymonline.com/word/Amazon |access-date=2023-11-13 |website=www.etymonline.com |language=en}}</ref> connected with an [[etiology|etiological]] tradition once claimed by [[Justin (historian)|Marcus Justinus]] who alleged that Amazons had their right [[mastectomy|breast cut off]] or [[breast ironing|burnt out]].<ref name="Patou-mathis2020">{{cite book|author=[[Marylène Patou-Mathis|Marylene Patou-Mathis]]|title=L'homme préhistorique est aussi une femme|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wsX-DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT313|date=1 October 2020|publisher=Allary éditions|isbn=978-2-37073-342-9|pages=313–}}</ref> There is no indication of such a practice in ancient works of art,<ref name=Mayor>{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-amazons-lives--legends-of-warrior-women-across-the-ancient-world-by-adrienne-mayor-book-review-9799090.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141020043426/http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-amazons-lives--legends-of-warrior-women-across-the-ancient-world-by-adrienne-mayor-book-review-9799090.html |archive-date=2014-10-20 |url-access=limited |url-status=live|title=The Amazons: Lives & Legends of Warrior Women Across the Ancient World by Adrienne Mayor, book review|last=Haynes|first=Natalie|date=16 October 2014|newspaper=The Independent|access-date=6 April 2015}}</ref> in which the Amazons are always represented with both breasts, although one is frequently covered.<ref name="EB1911">{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Amazons|volume=1|pages=790–791}}</ref> According to [[Philostratus]], Amazon babies were not fed just with the right breast.<ref>{{cite web | url= https://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/3565 | title= Flavius Philostratus, On Heroes | publisher= The Center for Hellenic Studies | date= August 5, 2019 | author= Flavius Philostratus, Ellen Bradshaw Aitken, Jennifer K. Berenson Maclean | access-date= January 10, 2021 | archive-date= January 26, 2021 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20210126022746/https://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/3565 | url-status= dead }}</ref> Author [[Adrienne Mayor]] suggests that the false etymology led to the myth.<ref name=Mayor/><ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05plghp|title=The Amazons - Adrienne Mayor |publisher= BBC Radio Four|date= 6 April 2015 }}</ref>

===Alternative terms===
[[Herodotus]] used the terms ''Androktones'' ({{lang|grc|Ἀνδροκτόνες}}) 'killers/slayers of men' or 'of husbands' and ''Androleteirai'' ({{lang|grc|Ἀνδρολέτειραι}}) 'destroyers of men, murderesses'. Amazons are called ''Antianeirai'' ({{lang|grc|Ἀντιάνειραι}}) 'equivalent to men' and [[Aeschylus]] used the term ''Styganor'' ({{lang|grc|Στυγάνωρ}}) 'those who loathe all men'.{{sfn|Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound}}

In his work ''[[Prometheus Bound]]'' and in ''[[The Suppliants (Aeschylus)|The Suppliants]]'', Aeschylus referred to the Amazons as 'the unwed, flesh-devouring Amazons' ({{lang|grc|...τὰς ἀνάνδρους κρεοβόρους τ᾽ Ἀμαζόνας}}). In the [[Hippolytus (play)|Hippolytus]] tragedy, [[Phaedra (mythology)|Phaedra]] calls [[Hippolytus (son of Theseus)|Hippolytus]], 'the son of the horse-loving Amazon' ({{lang|grc|...τῆς φιλίππου παῖς Ἀμαζόνος βοᾷ Ἱππόλυτος...}}). In his [[Dionysiaca]], [[Nonnus]] calls the Amazons of Dionysus ''Androphonus'' ({{lang|grc|Ἀνδροφόνους}}) 'men slaying'.<ref name="Nonnus, Dionysiaca, § 20.197">{{Cite web|url=https://el.wikisource.org/wiki/%CE%94%CE%B9%CE%BF%CE%BD%CF%85%CF%83%CE%B9%CE%B1%CE%BA%CE%AC/36|title=Διονυσιακά/36 - Βικιθήκη|website=el.wikisource.org}}</ref>{{sfn|Aeschylus, Suppliant Women}}
[[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 ==
[[File:Schedelsche Weltchronik d 029.jpg|thumb|Amazons in the [[Nuremberg Chronicle]] by [[Hartmann Schedel]], 1493]]
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 [[Civilization|civilized world]].<ref>"The Amazons existed outside the range of normal human experience": {{cite journal |url= https://www.jstor.org/stable/642368  |title= Greek Attitudes towards Women: The Mythological Evidence | publisher= jstor | author=P. Walcot   |journal= Greece & Rome |year= 1984 |volume= 31 |issue= 1 |pages= 37–47 |doi= 10.1017/S001738350002787X |jstor= 642368 |s2cid= 163008170 | access-date= February 2, 2021|url-access= subscription }}</ref> As a result, many classical scholars consider Amazons to be entirely fictional figures, invented by Greek men to serve as "anti-women" or to symbolize Persians.<ref>{{Citation |last=Mayor |first=Adrienne |title=Amazons |date=2016-03-07 |work=Oxford Classical Dictionary |url=https://oxfordre.com/classics/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.001.0001/acrefore-9780199381135-e-342 |access-date=2024-12-04 |language=en |doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.013.342 |isbn=978-0-19-938113-5|url-access=subscription }}</ref> 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 (Herodotus)|Histories]] (5th century BCE) 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.<ref name="CyrinoSafran2015">{{cite book|author1=M. Cyrino|author2=M. Safran|title=Classical Myth on Screen|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ft2_BwAAQBAJ&pg=PT179|date=8 April 2015|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-1-137-48603-5|pages=179–}}</ref>

Herodotus also observed rather unusual customs among the [[Lycia]]ns of southwest Asia Minor. The Lycians obviously followed [[Matrilineality|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 BCE in the Lycian regions that Herodotus had traveled to, suggested to him the idea that these people were descendants of the mythical Amazons.{{sfn|Herodotus, The Histories|p=1.173.1}}

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. 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]] and [[Sarmatian]] horse-centered lifestyle, however it is not known for certain if these people were the inspiration for the Amazons of Greek mythology.<ref name=jman>{{cite web |url= https://www.historyextra.com/period/ancient-greece/the-real-amazons-how-the-legendary-warrior-women-inspired-fighters-and-feminists/  |title= The real Amazons: how the legendary warrior women inspired fighters and feminists   |date= October 23, 2017  | publisher= BBC History Magazine | author= John Man    | access-date= February 4, 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/10/141029-amazons-scythians-hunger-games-herodotus-ice-princess-tattoo-cannabis/  |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20191019130554/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/10/141029-amazons-scythians-hunger-games-herodotus-ice-princess-tattoo-cannabis/  |url-status= dead  |archive-date= October 19, 2019  |title= Amazon Warriors Did Indeed Fight and Die Like Men   |date= October 28, 2014  | publisher= National Geographic | author=Simon Worrall    | access-date= February 4, 2021}}</ref>

== Mythology ==
[[File:Peter Paul Rubens - The Battle of the Amazons.JPG|thumb|''[[The Battle of the Amazons (Rubens)|Battle of the Amazons]]'', by [[Peter Paul Rubens]], 1618, [[Alte Pinakothek]], Munich]]
According to myth, [[Otrera]], the first Amazon queen, is the offspring of a [[Romance (love)|romance]] between [[Ares]] the god of war and the [[nymph]] [[Harmonia (nymph)|Harmonia]] of the [[Acmonia|Akmonian Wood]], and as such a demigoddess.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.theoi.com/Nymphe/NympheHarmonia.html    |title= HARMONIA |date=  | publisher= Theoi| author=  | access-date= January 14, 2021}}</ref><ref name="theoi.com">{{Cite web|url=https://www.theoi.com/Olympios/AresFamily.html#Amazones|title=ARES FAMILY - Greek Mythology|publisher=theoi com | access-date= January 8, 2021}}</ref><ref name=hin>{{cite web |url= https://www.historynet.com/amazons.htm | title= AMAZONS |publisher= Historynet | date= 20 April 2018| author= Adrienne Mayor, Josiah Ober  | access-date= January 8, 2021}}</ref>

Early records refer to two events in which Amazons appeared prior to the [[Trojan War]] (before 1250 BCE). Within the [[Epic poetry|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 [[Phrygia]]ns, who were attacked by Amazons at the [[Sakarya River|Sangarios River]].<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.greeklegendsandmyths.com/bellerophon.html   |title= BELLEROPHON IN GREEK MYTHOLOGY - Bellerophon and the Amazons |date= February 2, 2017 | publisher= Greek legends and myths| author=Colin Quartermain   | access-date= February 1, 2021}}</ref>

===Amazons in the Trojan War===
{{Trojan War}}
There are Amazon characters in [[Homer]]'s [[Trojan War]] epic poem, the ''[[Iliad]]'', one of the oldest surviving texts in Europe ([[Archaic Greece|around 8th century BCE]]).
The now lost epic ''[[Aethiopis]]'' (probably by [[Arctinus of Miletus]], 6th century BCE), like the ''Iliad'' and several other epics, is one of the works that in combination form the [[Epic Cycle|Trojan War Epic Cycle]]. In one of the few references to the text, an Amazon force under queen [[Penthesilea]], who was of [[Thrace|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.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.livius.org/sources/content/epic-cycle/ | title= Epic Cycle | publisher= Livius org| author=  | access-date= January 13, 2021}}</ref> 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.{{Citation needed|date=May 2021|reason=I want to say "dubious" because it's not known for sure that Homer was a specific person. But there's no citation. Please add one or this passage goes away.}}

Troy is mentioned in the ''Iliad'' as the place of [[Myrina (mythology)|Myrine]]'s death.{{sfn|Homer, Iliad|p=2.45–46}}{{sfn|Homer, Iliad|p=3.52–55}} Later identified as an Amazon queen, according to [[Diodorus Siculus|Diodorus]] (1st century BCE), the Amazons under her rule invaded the territories of the [[Atlantis|Atlantians]], defeated the army of the Atlantian city of Cerne, and razed the city to the ground.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7261&context=gradschool_disstheses   |title= The Amazon Myth in Western Literature |date=  | publisher= Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College | author=Bruce Robert Magee   | access-date= February 1, 2021}}</ref><ref name="EB1911"/>

===In Scythia===
[[File:Terme_Turkey.jpg|thumb|An amazon fighter statue in [[Terme]], [[Turkey]]]]

The [[Lyric poetry|Poet]] [[Bacchylides]] (6th century BCE) and the historian [[Herodotus]] (5th century BCE) located the Amazon homeland in ''[[Pontus (region)|Pontus]]'' at the southern shores of the Black Sea, and the capital [[Themiscyra (Pontus)|Themiscyra]] at the banks of the [[Thermodon]] (modern [[Terme river]]), by the modern city of [[Terme]]. Herodotus also explains how it came to be that some Amazons would eventually be living in [[Scythia]]. A Greek fleet, sailing home upon defeating the Amazons in battle at the Thermodon river, included three ships crowded with Amazon prisoners. Once out at sea, the Amazon prisoners overwhelmed and killed the small crews of the prisoner ships and, despite not having even basic navigation skills, managed to escape and safely disembark at the Scythian shore. As soon as the Amazons had caught enough horses, they easily asserted themselves in the steppe in between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea and, according to Herodotus, would eventually assimilate with the Scythians, whose descendants were the Sauromatae, the predecessors of the [[Sarmatians]].{{sfn|Herodotus, The Histories|p=4.110.1}}<ref name=admay/>

===Amazon homeland===
[[Strabo]] (1st century BCE) visits and confirms the original homeland of the Amazons on the plains by the [[Terme River|Thermodon]] river. However, long gone and not seen again during his lifetime, the Amazons had allegedly retreated into the mountains. Strabo, however, added that other authors, among them [[Metrodorus of Scepsis]] and [[Hypsicrates]] claim that after abandoning Themiscyra, the Amazons had chosen to resettle beyond the borders of the [[Gargareans]], an all-male tribe native to the northern foothills of the [[Caucasus Mountains|Caucasian Mountains]]. The Amazons and [[Gargareans]] had for many generations met in secrecy once a year during two months in spring, in order to produce children. These encounters would take place in accordance with ancient tribal customs and collective offers of sacrifices. All females were retained by the Amazons themselves, and males were returned to the Gargareans.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://faculty.washington.edu/scstroup/Amazonevidence.html| title= Reading on Amazons | publisher= University of Washington| author=  | access-date= January 13, 2021}}</ref> 5th century BCE poet [[Magnes (comic poet)|Magnes]] sings of the bravery of the [[Lydians]] in a cavalry-battle against the Amazons.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://topostext.org/work/240#mu.21   |title= Suda Encyclopedia |date=  | publisher= Topostext | author=   | access-date= February 1, 2021}}</ref><ref name="BlundellBlundell1995">{{cite book|author1=Sue Blundell|author2=Susan Blundell|title=Women in Ancient Greece p. 60|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Xfx1VaSIOgQC|year=1995|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-95473-1}}</ref><ref name=vul/>

===Heracles myth===
[[File:NAMA - Tyrrhenian Amphora by the Prometheus Painter.jpg|thumb|upright|A [[Tyrrhenian amphorae|Tyrrhenian amphora]], depicting  an ''Amazonomachy - Heracles fights Andromache, Telamon fights Ainipe and Iphis fights Panariste'', {{circa|570}} BCE, [[Museum of Fine Arts, Boston]]]]
[[Hippolyte]] was an Amazon queen killed by [[Heracles]], who had set out to obtain the queen's magic belt in a task he was to accomplish as one of the [[Labours of Hercules|Labours of Heracles]]. Although neither side had intended to resort to lethal combat, a misunderstanding led to the fight. In the course of this, Heracles killed the queen and several other Amazons. In awe of the strong hero, the Amazons eventually handed the belt to Heracles. In another version, Heracles does not kill the queen, but exchanges her kidnapped sister [[Melanippe]] for the belt.<ref name="Fischer-HansenPoulsen2009">{{cite book|author1=Tobias Fischer-Hansen|author2=Birte Poulsen|title=From Artemis to Diana: The Goddess of Man and Beast|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2garBSREfywC&pg=PA333|year=2009|publisher=Museum Tusculanum Press|isbn=978-87-635-0788-2|pages=333–}}</ref><ref name="Blok1995"/><ref name="duBois1991">{{cite book|author=Page duBois|title=Centaurs and Amazons: Women and the Pre-History of the Great Chain of Being|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hyw9BSzzOwMC&pg=PA49|date=July 1991|publisher=University of Michigan Press|isbn=0-472-08153-5|pages=33–}}</ref><ref name=vul>{{cite web |url= https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/artifact?name=Boston%2098.916&object=Vase  |title= Boston 98.916 (Vase), from the Vulci necropolis   |date=   | publisher= Tufts University | author= Stéphane Gsell    | access-date= February 4, 2021}}</ref>

===Theseus myth===
Queen [[Hippolyte]] was abducted by [[Theseus]], who took her to Athens, where she was married to him and bore him a son, [[Hippolytus (play)|Hippolytus]]. In other versions, the kidnapped Amazon is called [[Antiope (Amazon)|Antiope]], the sister of Hippolyte. In revenge, the Amazons invaded Greece, plundered some cities along the coast of Attica, and besieged and occupied Athens. Hippolyte, who fought on the side of Athens, according to another account was killed during the final battle along with all of the Amazons.<ref name="duBois1991"/><ref name="Bennett1967">{{cite book|author=Florence Mary Bennett|title=Religious Cults Associated With the Amazons|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FIM8g-KE9dsC&pg=PT88|year=1967|publisher=Library of Alexandria|isbn=978-1-4655-7683-5|pages=88–}}</ref>

===Amazons and Dionysus===
According to [[Plutarch]], the god [[Dionysus]] and his companions fought Amazons at [[Ephesus]]. The Amazons fled to [[Samos]] and Dionysus pursued them and killed a great number of them at a site since called ''Panaema'' (blood-soaked field).<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rboWBAAAQBAJ|title=The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World|first=Adrienne|last=Mayor|date=22 September 2014|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=9781400865130|via=Google Books}}</ref> The Christian author [[Eusebius]] writes that during the reign of [[Oxyntes]], one of the mythical kings of Athens, the Amazons burned down the temple at [[Ephesus]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.attalus.org/armenian/euseb10.htm|title=Eusebius' Chronicle  | author=Robert Bedrosian |publisher= Attalus | access-date= February 2, 2021}}</ref>

In another myth Dionysus unites with the Amazons to fight against [[Cronus]] and the [[Titan (mythology)|Titans]]. [[Polyaenus]] writes that after Dionysus has subdued the Indians, he allies with them and the Amazons and takes them into his service, who serve him in his campaign against the [[Bactria]]ns. [[Nonnus]] in his ''[[Dionysiaca]]'' reports about the Amazons of Dionysus, but states that they do not come from Thermodon.<ref name="Nonnus, Dionysiaca, § 20.197"/><ref>{{cite web |url= https://cts.perseids.org/read/greekLit/tlg0616/tlg001/1st1K-grc1/1.1   |title= Strategemata Polyaenus Macedo - Melber and Woelfflin, Teubner, 1887 |date=  | publisher= Read Greek | author=   | access-date= February 2, 2021}}</ref>

===Amazons and Alexander the Great===
[[File:Johann Georg Platzer - Thalestris im Lager Alexander des Großen.jpg|thumb|''The Amazon Queen [[Thalestris]] in the camp of [[Alexander the Great]]'', [[Johann Georg Platzer]]]]
Amazons are also mentioned by historians and biographers of [[Alexander the Great]] who reports Queen [[Thalestris]]'s seeking him out in order to bear him a child.<ref>Adrienne Mayor, "When Alexander Met Thalestris," ''History Today'' 65 (2015): 10-27, via [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270759730_When_Alexander_Met_Thalestris ResearchGate]</ref>  However, other biographers of Alexander dispute the claim, including the highly regarded [[Plutarch]]. He noted a moment when Alexander's naval commander [[Onesicritus]] read an Amazon myth passage of his ''Alexander History'' to King [[Lysimachus]] of [[Thrace]] who had taken part in the original expedition. The king smiled at him and said: "And where was I, then?"<ref>[[Plutarch]], ''Life of Alexander'', [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Alexander*/6-7.html#46 Chapter 46]</ref>

A story in the ''[[Alexander Romance]]''<ref>Greek ''[[Alexander Romance]]'', [https://www.attalus.org/translate/alexander3c.html#25 3.25–26]</ref> involves his conquest of the Amazons, carried out mainly by an exchange of threatening letters.

The [[Talmud]]<ref>Tamid 32a</ref> recounts that Alexander wanted to conquer a "kingdom of women" but reconsidered when the women told him: {{blockquote| If you kill us, people will say: Alexander kills women; and if we kill you, people will say: Alexander is the king whom women killed in battle.}}

===Roman and ancient Egyptian records===
[[File:Amazone Staatliche Antikensammlungen 8953.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Armed Amazon, her shield decorates a [[Gorgon]] head; [[Tondo (art)|Tondo]] of Attic red-figure [[kylix]], {{circa|500}} BCE, [[Staatliche Antikensammlungen]], Berlin.]]
[[Virgil]]'s characterization of the [[Volsci]] warrior maiden [[Camilla (mythology)|Camilla]] in the ''[[Aeneid]]'' borrows from the myths of the Amazons. [[Philostratus]], in ''Heroica'', writes that the [[Mysian]] women fought on horses alongside the men, just as the Amazons. The leader was Hiera, wife of [[Telephus]]. The Amazons are also said to have undertaken an expedition against the [[Snake Island (Black Sea)|Island of Leuke]], at the mouth of the [[Danube]], where the ashes of [[Achilles]] were deposited by [[Thetis]]. The ghost of the dead hero so terrified the horses, that they threw off and trampled upon the invaders, who were forced to retreat.<ref name="EB1911"/> [[Virgil]] touches on the Amazons and their queen Penthesilea in his epic [[Aeneid]] (around 20 BCE).

The biographer [[Suetonius]] had [[Julius Caesar]] remark in his ''[[De vita Caesarum]]'' that the Amazons ''once ruled a large part of Asia''. [[Appian]] provides a vivid description of Themiscyra and its fortifications in his account of [[Lucullus|Lucius Licinius Lucullus]]'s ''Siege of Themiscyra'' in 71 BCE during the [[Third Mithridatic War]].<ref>{{cite web |url= https://thelastdiadoch.tumblr.com/post/112524176345/the-siege-of-themiscyra-and-bees-used-in-defense   |title= The Siege of Themiscyra |date=  | publisher= The last Diadoch | author=   | access-date= February 1, 2021}}</ref><ref name="Fratantuono2017">{{cite book|author=Lee Fratantuono|title=Lucullus: The Life and Campaigns of a Roman Conqueror|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MLPNDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT100|date=30 September 2017|publisher=Pen & Sword Books|isbn=978-1-4738-8363-5|pages=100–}}</ref><ref name="Fischer-HansenPoulsen2009"/>

An Amazon myth has been partly preserved in two badly fragmented versions around historical people in 7th century BCE Egypt. The Egyptian prince ''Petechonsis'' and allied Assyrian troops undertook a joint campaign into the ''Land of Women'', to the ''Middle East'' at the border to India. ''Petechonsis'' initially fought the Amazons, but soon fell in love with their queen ''Sarpot'' and eventually allied with her against an invading Indian army. This story is said to have originated in Egypt independently of Greek influences.<ref name="Mayor2014">{{cite book|author=Adrienne Mayor|title=The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rboWBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA15|date=22 September 2014|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-1-4008-6513-0|pages=15–}}</ref><ref name="HoffmannQuack2018">{{cite book|author1=Friedhelm Hoffmann|author2=Joachim Friedrich Quack|title=Anthologie der demotischen Literatur|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GYVVDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA419|year=2018|publisher=LIT Verlag Münster|isbn=978-3-643-14029-6|pages=419–}}</ref>

===Amazon queens===
[[File:Archaeological museum, Athens (4976609478).jpg|thumb|right|Caryatid Amazon from the villa of [[Herodes Atticus]], 2nd century CE, [[National Archaeological Museum, Athens|National Archaeological Museum]] of [[Athens]].]]

Sources provide names of individual Amazons, that are referred to as queens of their people, even as the head of a dynasty. Without a male companion, they are portrayed in command of their female warriors. Among the most prominent Amazon queens were:

* [[Otrera]], daughter of the nymph Harmonia and god of war, Ares. She is the mother of Hippolyta, Antiope, Melanippe, and Penthesilea and the mythical founder of the [[Temple of Artemis]] in Ephesus.
*[[Hippolyta]], daughter of Otrera and Ares. She is part of the Theseus and Heracles myths, in which Antiope is her sister. Alcippe, the only Amazon known to have sworn a chastity oath, belongs to her entourage.
* [[Penthesilea]], who kills her sister Hippolyte in a hunting accident, comes to the aid of the hard-pressed Trojans with her warriors, is defeated by Achilles, who mourns her.
* [[Lampedo]] and [[Marpesia]], queens of the Amazons mentioned by [[Justin (historian)|Justin]]
* [[Myrina (mythology)|Myrina]], who leads a military expedition in Libya, defeats the Atlanteans, forms an alliance with the ruler of Egypt, and conquers numerous cities and islands.
* [[Thalestris]], the last known Amazon queen. According to legend, she meets the Greek conqueror [[Alexander the Great]] in 330 BCE. Her home is the Thermodon region, or, variably, the [[Gates of Alexander]], south of the Caspian Sea.

== Various authors and chroniclers ==
[[File:Orient méditerranéen de l'Empire romain - Mosaïque byzantine -5.JPG|thumb|upright=1.3|A [[Hippeis#Citizen cavalry|hippeis]] rider seizes a mounted Amazonian warrior armed with a [[labrys]] by her [[Phrygian cap]]. [[Roman mosaic]] emblema (marble and limestone) from Daphne, a suburb of [[Antioch-on-the-Orontes]] (now [[Antakya]] in [[Turkey]]), second half of the 4th century CE, the [[Louvre]], Paris.]]

===Quintus Smyrnaeus===
[[Quintus Smyrnaeus]], author of the [[Posthomerica]] lists the attendant warriors of Penthesilea: "[[Clonie (Greek myth)|Clonie]] was there, [[Polemusa (mythology)|Polemusa]], [[Derinoe (mythology)|Derinoe]], [[Evandre (mythology)|Evandre]], and [[Antandre]], and [[Bremusa]], [[Hippothoe]], dark-eyed [[Harmothoe (mythology)|Harmothoe]], [[Alcibie]], [[Derimacheia (mythology)|Derimacheia]], [[Antibrote (mythology)|Antibrote]], and [[Thermodosa (mythology)|Thermodosa]] glorying with the spear."<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.theoi.com/Text/QuintusSmyrnaeus1.html  |title= QUINTUS SMYRNAEUS 1 - THE FALL OF TROY |date=  | publisher= Theoi | author= A. S. WAY  | access-date= February 6, 2021}}</ref>

===Diodorus Siculus===
[[Diodorus Siculus]] lists twelve Amazons who challenged and died fighting Heracles during his quest for Hippolyta's girdle: [[Aella (Amazon)|Aella]], [[Philippis (mythology)|Philippis]], [[Prothoe (mythology)|Prothoe]], [[Eriboea (mythology)|Eriboea]], [[Celaeno]], [[Eurybia (Greek myth)|Eurybia]], [[Phoebe (mythological characters)|Phoebe]], [[Deianira (mythology)|Deianeira]], [[Asteria (mythology)|Asteria]], [[Marpe (mythology)|Marpe]], [[Tecmessa]], and [[Alcippe (mythology)|Alcippe]]. After Alcippe's death, a group attack followed. Diodorus also mentions [[Melanippe]], whom Heracles set free after accepting her girdle and Antiope as ransom.{{sfn|Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica, Books I-V|p=4}}

Diodorus lists another group with [[Myrina (mythology)|Myrina]] as the queen who commanded the Amazons in a military expedition in Libya, as well as her sister [[Mytilene (mythology)|Mytilene]], after whom she named the [[Mytilene|city of the same name]]. Myrina also named three more cities after the Amazons who held the most important commands under her, [[Cyme (Aeolis)|Cyme]], [[Pitane (Aeolis)|Pitane]], and [[Priene]].

===Justin and Paulus Orosius===
Both [[Justin (historian)|Justin]] in his ''Epitome of Trogus Pompeius'' and Paulus Orosius give an account of the Amazons, citing the same names. Queens [[Marpesia]] and [[Lampedo]] shared the power during an incursion in Europe and Asia, where they were slain. Marpesia's daughter [[Orithyia (Amazon)|Orithyia]] succeeded them and was greatly admired for her skill on war. She shared power with her sister [[Antiope (Amazon)|Antiope]], but she was engaged in war abroad when Heracles attacked. Two of Antiope's sisters were taken prisoner, Melanippe by Heracles and [[Hippolyta]] by Theseus. Heracles latter restored Melanippe to her sister after receiving the queen's arms in exchange, though, on other accounts she was killed by [[Telamon]]. They also mention Penthesilea's role in the Trojan War.<ref>[[Scholia]] on [[Pindar]], Nemean Ode 3. 64</ref><ref name="justin-2.4">{{cite web|url=https://www.attalus.org/translate/justin8.html#2.4 |title=Justinus: Epitome of Pompeius Trogus' Philippic Histories 2.4|access-date=2020-05-10}}</ref><ref name="thelatinlibrary.com">[[Paulus Orosius]], [http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/orosius/orosius1.shtml ''Historiae adversus paganos'', I. 15]</ref>

[[File:Peter Paul Rubens - Battle of the Amazons.jpg|thumb|''Battle of the Amazons'' by [[Peter Paul Rubens|Rubens]] and [[Jan Brueghel the Elder|Jan Brueghel]], {{circa|1600}}, [[Sanssouci Picture Gallery]], Potsdam]]

===Hyginus===
Another [[list of Amazons]]' names is found in [[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus]]'s ''Fabulae''. Along with [[Hippolyta]], [[Otrera]], [[Antiope (Amazon)|Antiope]] and [[Penthesilea]], it attests the following names: [[Ocyale (mythology)|Ocyale]], [[Dioxippe]], [[Iphinoe (mythology)|Iphinome]], [[Xanthe (mythology)|Xanthe]], [[Hippothoe]], [[Laomache (mythology)|Laomache]], [[Glauce]], [[Agave (mythology)|Agave]], [[Theseis (mythology)|Theseis]], [[Clymene (mythology)|Clymene]], [[Polydora]].{{sfn|Hygnius|p=163, 30, 122, 223}}

Perhaps the most important is Queen [[Otrera]], consort of [[Ares]] and mother by him of Hippolyta and Penthesilea.<ref>Apollodorus, Bibliotheca E5. 1</ref> She is also known for building a temple to [[Artemis]] at Ephesus.<ref>[[Apollonius Rhodius]], ''[[Argonautica]]'' 2. 370 ff and 382 ff</ref>

===Valerius Flaccus===
Another different set of names is found in [[Gaius Valerius Flaccus|Valerius Flaccus]]'s ''Argonautica''. He mentions [[Euryale]], [[Harpe (mythology)|Harpe]], [[Lyce (mythology)|Lyce]], [[Menippe (mythology)|Menippe]] and [[Thoe]]. Of these Lyce also appears on a fragment, preserved in the ''[[Latin Anthology]]'' where she is said to have killed the hero [[Clonus (mythology)|Clonus]] of [[Moesia]], son of [[Doryclus]], with her javelin.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.theoi.com/Text/ValeriusFlaccus1.html  |title= VALERIUS FLACCUS 1  |date=  | publisher= Theoi | author= J. H. MOZLEY    | access-date= February 6, 2021}}</ref>

===Palaephatus===
[[Palaephatus]], who himself might have been a fictional character, attempted to rationalize the Greek myths in his work ''[[Paradoxography|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 not exist in the past either.<ref name="Stern1996">{{cite book|author=Jacob Stern|title=On Unbelievable Tales|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t4EfiGQwgh4C|date=1 January 1996|publisher=Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers|isbn=978-0-86516-320-1}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a-NmaO-kM2UC|title=Classical Mythology: A Guide to the Mythical World of the Greeks and Romans|first=William F.|last=Hansen|date=26 April 2005|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780195300352|via=Google Books}}</ref><ref name="Westermann1839">{{cite book|author=Anton Westermann|title=Paradoxographoi &#91;romanized&#93;.: Scriptores rerum mirabilium graeci. Insunt (Aristotelis) Mirabiles auscultationes; Antigoni, Apollonii, Phlegontis Historiae mirabiles, Michaelis Pselli Lectiones mirabiles, reliquorum eiusdem generis scriptorum deperditorum fragmenta . Accedunt Phlegontis Macrobii et Olympiadum reliquiae et anonymi tractus De mulieribus, etc|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XIVxAAAAIAAJ|year=1839|publisher=sumptum fecit G. Westermann}}</ref> He himself contradicted this in his rationalizing of [[Oedipus]] and the [[Sphinx]], portraying the latter as an Amazon woman named "Sphinx."

== Late Antiquity, Middle Ages, and Renaissance literature ==
[[File:Mattei-type Amazon at the Numismatic Museum of Athens on October 1, 2021.jpg|thumb|upright=.8|Clay statue of a Mattei-type Amazon, [[Numismatic Museum of Athens]], [[Greece]].]]

[[Stephanus of Byzantium]] (7th-century CE) provides numerous alternative lists of the Amazons, including  for those who died in combat against Heracles, describing them as the "most prominent of their people". Both Stephanus and Eustathius connect these Amazons with the placename "Thibais", which they claim to have been derived from the Amazon Thiba's name.<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://brill.com/view/journals/mnem/49/5/article-p612_14.xml?language=en  |title= From Political Architecture to Stephanus Byzantius. Sources for the study of the ancient Greek polis |date=  January 1996| publisher= Brill | author= D. WHITEHEAD  |journal= Mnemosyne |volume= 49 |issue= 5 |pages= 612–615 |doi= 10.1163/1568525962610509 | access-date= February 2, 2021|url-access= subscription }}</ref> Several of Stephanus's Amazons served as [[eponym]]s for cities in Asia Minor, like Cyme and Smyrna or Amastris, who was believed to lend her name to the city previously known as Kromna, although in fact it was named after the historical [[Amastrine|Amastris]]. The city Anaea in Caria was named after an Amazon.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qB9dKo_i-QIC&q=Anaea+greek+city&pg=PA158|title=Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology|first=William|last=Smith|date=26 April 1844|publisher=Taylor and Walton|via=Google Books}}</ref><ref>{{cite book| last = Pritchett| first = W. Kendrick| title = Studies in ancient Greek topography: Passes| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=N7AVAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA276| access-date = 30 September 2010| year = 1998| publisher = University of California Press| isbn = 978-0-520-09660-8| page = 276 }}</ref>

In his work ''[[Getica]]'' (on the origin and history of the [[Goths]], {{circa|551 CE}}), [[Jordanes]] asserts that the Goths' ancestors, descendants of [[Magog (Bible)|Magog]], originally lived in Scythia, at the [[Sea of Azov]] between the [[Dnieper]] and [[Don River (Russia)|Don Rivers]]. When the Goths were abroad campaigning against Pharaoh [[Vesosis]], their women, on their own successfully fended off a raid by a neighboring tribe. Emboldened, the women established their own army under [[Marpesia]], crossed the Don and invaded eastward into Asia. Marpesia's sister [[Lampedo]] remained in Europe to guard the homeland. They procreated with men once a year. These women conquered Armenia, Syria, and all of Asia Minor, even reaching [[Ionia]] and [[Aeolis]], holding this vast territory for 100 years.

In ''[[Digenes Akritas]]'', the twelfth century medieval epic of Basil, the Greco-Syrian knight of the [[Byzantine Empire|Byzantine]] frontier, the hero battles and then commits adultery with the female warrior Maximo (killing her afterwards in one version of the epic), descended from some Amazons and taken by Alexander from the Brahmans.<ref>{{cite journal |url= https://www.academia.edu/30353289  |title= Digenis Akritis, the Two-Blood Border Lord.pdf |date=  January 2016| publisher= Academia | author= Corinne Jouanno   |journal= Fictional Storytelling in the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean and Beyond | access-date= February 3, 2021}}</ref><ref name="Akritis1998">{{cite book|author=Vassílios Digenís Akritis|title=Digenis Akritis: The Grottaferrata and Escorial Versions|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Gd4ifVQxKtwC&pg=PR14|date=7 May 1998|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-39472-7|pages=xxvii}}</ref>

[[John Tzetzes]] lists in ''[[Posthomerica]]'' twenty Amazons, who fell at [[Troy]]. This list is unique in its attestation for all the names but [[Antianeira]], [[Andromache (mythology)|Andromache]], and Hippothoe. Other than these three, the remaining 17 Amazons were named as [[Toxophone (mythology)|Toxophone]], [[Toxoanassa (mythology)|Toxoanassa]], [[Gortyessa (mythology)|Gortyessa]], [[Iodoce (mythology)|Iodoce]], [[Pharetre (mythology)|Pharetre]], [[Andro (mythology)|Andro]], [[Ioxeia (mythology)|Ioxeia]], [[Oistrophe (mythology)|Oistrophe]], [[Androdaixa (mythology)|Androdaixa]], [[Aspidocharme (mythology)|Aspidocharme]], [[Enchesimargos (mythology)|Enchesimargos]], [[Cnemis (mythology)|Cnemis]], [[Thorece (mythology)|Thorece]], [[Chalcaor (mythology)|Chalcaor]], [[Eurylophe (mythology)|Eurylophe]], [[Hecate (mythology)|Hecate]], and [[Anchimache (mythology)|Anchimache]].<ref>Tzetzes, ''Posthomerica'' 176–182</ref>

Famous medieval traveller [[John Mandeville]] mentions them in his book:

{{blockquote|Beside the land of Chaldea is the land of Amazonia, that is the land of Feminye. And in that realm is all woman and no man; not as some may say, that men may not live there, but for because that the women will not suffer no men amongst them to be their sovereigns.<ref>''The Travels of Sir John Mandeville'', Dover publications, Mineola, New York, 2006, cap. XVII, p. 103–104</ref>}}

Medieval and Renaissance authors credit the Amazons with the invention of the [[Corded Ware culture|battle-axe]]. This is probably related to the ''[[sagaris]]'', an axe-like weapon associated with both Amazons and Scythian tribes by Greek authors (see also [[Thracian tomb of Aleksandrovo kurgan]]). [[Paulus Hector Mair]] expresses astonishment that such a "manly weapon" should have been invented by a "tribe of women", but he accepts the attribution out of respect for his authority, [[Johannes Aventinus]].

[[Ludovico Ariosto|Ariosto]]'s ''[[Orlando Furioso]]'' contains a country of warrior women, ruled by Queen Orontea; the epic describes an origin much like that in Greek myth, in that the women, abandoned by a band of warriors and unfaithful lovers, rallied together to form a nation from which men were severely reduced, to prevent them from regaining power. The Amazons and Queen Hippolyta are also referenced in [[Geoffrey Chaucer]]'s ''[[The Canterbury Tales|Canterbury Tales]]'' in "[[The Knight's Tale]]".

[[File:Francisco de Orellana1.JPG|thumb|right|[[Francisco de Orellana]]; he coined the name "[[Amazon River]]".]]
[[File:Amazone Staatliche Antikensammlungen 2342.jpg|thumb|Amazon in [[Scythia]]n attire, [[Attica|Attic]] vase, {{circa|420 BCE}}, [[Staatliche Antikensammlungen]], Munich]]

Amazons continued to be subject of scholarly debate during the European Renaissance, and with the onset of the [[Age of Exploration]], encounters were reported from ever more distant lands. In 1542, [[Francisco de Orellana]] reached the [[Amazon River]], naming it after the ''{{ill|Icamiabas|pt|Icamiabas}}'',<ref>{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=2018-07-20|title=New Frog Species Named After Fabled Female Warriors|url=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2018/07/news-frogs-brazil-culture-history/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180721013819/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2018/07/news-frogs-brazil-culture-history/|url-status=dead|archive-date=July 21, 2018|access-date=2021-01-27|website=[[National Geographic]]|language=en}}</ref> a tribe of warlike women he claimed to have encountered and fought on the [[Nhamundá River]], a tributary of the Amazon.<ref>It has been suggested that what Orellana actually engaged was an especially warlike tribe of Native Americans whose warrior men wore long hair and thus appeared to be women. See Theobaldo Miranda Santos, ''Lendas e mitos do Brasil'' ("Brazil's legends and myths"), Companhia Editora Nacional, 1979.</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=http://chiaroscuro-studios.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Yearbook_2018_LENDAS_Versao_livro_DIGITAL.pdf |title=Lendas |publisher=Chiaroscuro Studios |page=14}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=http://chiaroscuro-studios.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Yearbook_2018_LENDAS_Versao_livro_DIGITAL.pdf |title=Lendas |publisher=Chiaroscuro Studios |year=2018 |page=14}}</ref> Afterwards the whole basin and region of the Amazon (''Amazônia'' in Portuguese, ''Amazonía'' in Spanish) were named after the river. Amazons also figure in the accounts of both [[Christopher Columbus]] and [[Walter Raleigh]].<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.britannica.com/place/Amazon-River  |title= Amazon River   |date=   | publisher= Encyclopædia Britannica | author=Raymond E. Crist    | access-date= February 4, 2021}}</ref>

== Amazons in art ==
[[File:Gladiatrix relief.jpg|thumb|left|Two [[female gladiator]]s with their names ''Amazonia and Achillea'']]
Beginning around 550 BCE. depictions of Amazons as daring fighters and equestrian warriors appeared on vases. After the [[Battle of Marathon]] in 490 BCE the ''Amazon battle - [[Amazonomachy]]'' became popular motifs on pottery. By the sixth century BCE, public and privately displayed artwork used the Amazon imagery for pediment reliefs, sarcophagi, mosaics, pottery, jewelry and even monumental sculptures, that adorned important buildings like the [[Parthenon]] in Athens. Amazon motifs remained popular until the Roman [[Roman Empire|imperial period]] and into [[Late antiquity]].<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.amazonation.com/AmazonsArt.htm  |title= Amazons in Art |date=  | publisher= Amazonation | author=    | access-date= February 3, 2021}}</ref>

Apart from the artistic desire to express the passionate womanhood of the Amazons in contrast with the manhood of their enemies, some modern historians interpret the popularity of Amazon in art as indicators of societal trends, both positive and negative. Greek and Roman societies, however, utilized the Amazon mythology as a literary and artistic vehicle to unite against a commonly held enemy. The metaphysical characteristics of Amazons were seen as personifications of both nature and religion. Roman authors like Virgil, Strabo, Pliny the Elder, Curtius, Plutarch, Arrian, and Pausanias advocated the greatness of the state, as Amazon myths served to discuss the creation of origin and identity for the Roman people. However, that changed over time. Amazons in Roman literature and art have many faces, such as the ''Trojan ally, the warrior goddess, the native Latin, the warmongering Celt, the proud Sarmatian, the hedonistic and passionate Thracian warrior queen, the subdued Asian city, and the worthy Roman foe''.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.wissenschaft.de/magazin/weitere-themen/auf-den-spuren-penthesileias/    |title= Die Amazonen zwischen Mythos und Realität - Auf den Spuren Penthesileias  |date= August 19, 2010 | publisher= Wissenschaft DE | author= Jochen Fornasier  | access-date= January 17, 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url= https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1027&context=honorstheses  |title= The Amazon in Greek Art |date= March 22, 2012  | publisher= Portland State University | author=Annaliese Elaine Patten     | access-date= February 3, 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.ancient.eu/article/353/roman-interpretations-of-the-amazons-through-liter/  |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20190520062034/https://www.ancient.eu/article/353/roman-interpretations-of-the-amazons-through-liter/  |url-status= dead  |archive-date= May 20, 2019  |title= Roman Interpretations of the Amazons through Literature and Art |date= March 22, 2012  | publisher= Ancient EU | author=Erin W. Leal    | access-date= February 3, 2021}}</ref>[[File:Juliusz Kossak - Amazonka.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Juliusz Kossak]], ''An Amazon'', 1878]]
[[File:Fra Mauro map, sector XL.jpg|left|thumb|Fra Mauro map (XL) with location {{Langx|grc|Ἀμαζόnia|translit=Amazonia}} placed on the [[Volga region|Middle Volga]]]]
In [[The Renaissance|Renaissance]] Europe, artists started to reevaluate and depict Amazons based on Christian ethics. [[Elizabeth I|Queen Elizabeth]] of England was associated with Amazon warrior qualities (''the foremost ancient examples of feminism'') during her reign and was indeed depicted as such. Though, as explained in ''Divina Virago'' by Winfried Schleiner, Celeste T. Wright has given a detailed account of the bad reputation Amazons had in the Renaissance. She notes that she has not found any Elizabethans comparing the Queen to an Amazon and suggests that they might have hesitated to do so because of the association of Amazons with enfranchisement of women, which was considered contemptible.<ref>{{cite journal |url= https://www.jstor.org/stable/4173965  |title= "Divina Virago": Queen Elizabeth as an Amazon |date= March 22, 2012  | publisher= Jstor | author=Winfried Schleiner    |journal= Studies in Philology |volume= 75 |issue= 2 |pages= 163–180 |jstor= 4173965 | access-date= February 3, 2021}}</ref> Elizabeth was present at a tournament celebrating the marriage of the [[Ambrose Dudley, 3rd Earl of Warwick|Earl of Warwick]] and [[Anne Russell, Countess of Warwick|Anne Russell]] at [[Westminster Palace]] on 11 November 1565 involving male riders dressed as Amazons. They accompanied the challengers carrying their heraldry. These riders wore crimson gowns, masks with long hair attached, and swords.<ref>[[Thomas Hearne (antiquarian)|Thomas Hearne]], [https://archive.org/details/b30528100_0002/page/666/mode/2up ''De rebus Britannicis collectanea'', vol. 2 (London, 1774), pp. 666-9]</ref>

[[Peter Paul Rubens]] and [[Jan Brueghel the Elder|Jan Brueghel]] depicted the [[The Battle of the Amazons (Rubens)|Battle of the Amazons]] around 1598, a ''most dramatic baroque painting'', followed by a painting of the [[Rococo]] period by [[Johann Georg Platzer]], also titled ''Battle of the Amazons''. In 19th-century European [[Romanticism]] German artist [[Anselm Feuerbach]] occupied himself with the Amazons as well. Of Faeurbach's painting, Gert Schiff wrote that: <blockquote>It engendered all the aspirations of the Romantics: their desire to transcend the boundaries of the ego and of the known world; their interest in the occult in nature and in the soul; their search for a national identity, and the ensuing search for the mythic origins of the Germanic nation; finally, their wish to escape the harsh realities of the present through immersion in an idealized past.<ref name="Schiff 1981 p. 102">{{cite book |last=Schiff |first=Gert |url=https://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15324coll10/id/71300 |title=German Masters of the Nineteenth Century: Paintings and Drawings from the Federal Republic of Germany |publisher=The Metropolitan Museum of Art |year=1981 |isbn=978-0-87099-264-3 |editor-last=O'Neill |editor-first=John P. |page=[https://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15324coll10/id/71028 10] |chapter=An Epoch of Longing: An Introduction to German Painting of the Nineteenth Century |oclc=644250595 |editor2-last=Walter |editor2-first=Emily |chapter-url=https://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15324coll10/id/71027}}</ref></blockquote>

== Maps ==
On medieval [[Borgia map|Borgia Velletri map]] picture of females with bow and arrow and with spear and shield with description ''The land formerly of illustrious women'' of place North (on the bottom) on ''Edilus fluuius maximus'' (Volga).<ref>{{Cite web |title=An account of a copy from the 15th century of a map of the world engraved on metal |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b4344573&seq=30&view=1up |access-date=2024-10-22 |website=HathiTrust |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Smith |first=Cynthia |date=2024-10-03 |title=Cardinal Borgia's Unusual Map of the World {{!}} Worlds Revealed |url=https://blogs.loc.gov/maps/2024/10/cardinal-borgias-unusual-map-of-the-world/ |access-date=2024-10-22 |website=The Library of Congress}}</ref>

In medieval [[Fra Mauro map]] country  {{Langx|grc|Ἀμαζόnia|translit=Amazonia}} placed on the [[Volga region|Middle Volga]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Fomenko |first1=I.K. |last2=Shcherbakova |first2=E.I. |title=The Western Trail of the "Kazan Dragon" |url=https://mse.msu.ru/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Dragon.pdf |journal=Zolotoordynskaya Tsivilizatsiya = Golden Horde Civilization  |language=Russian |publication-date=2017 |issue=10 |pages=378–389}}</ref>

==Archaeology==
Speculation that the idea of Amazons, specifically the Amazons known to the Greeks, contains a core of reality is based on archaeological discoveries at [[kurgan]] burial sites in the steppes of southern Ukraine and Russia. The varied war weapon artifacts found in graves of numerous high-ranking [[Scythians|Scythian]] and [[Sarmatian]] warrior women have led scholars to conclude that the Amazonian legend has been inspired by the real world: About 20% of the warrior graves on the lower [[Don River (Russia)|Don]] and lower [[Volga river|Volga]] contained women dressed for battle similar to how men dress. Armed women accounted for up to 25% of Sarmatian military burials. Russian archaeologist [[Vera Kovalevskaya]] asserts that when Scythian men were abroad fighting or hunting, women would have to be able to competently defend themselves, their animals, and their pastures.<ref name="anthonyd">{{cite book| last = Anthony| first = David W.| title = The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=mTxQmQEACAAJ| year = 2007| publisher = Princeton University Press| isbn = 978-0-691-05887-0 }}</ref>

In early 20th century [[Minoan civilization|Minoan]] archeology, a theory regarding Amazon origins in Minoan civilization was raised in an essay by [[Lewis Richard Farnell]] and [[John Myres]]. According to Myres, the tradition interpreted in the light of evidence furnished by supposed Amazon cults seems to have been very similar and may have even originated in Minoan culture.<ref name="EvansLang1908">{{cite book|author=Sir Arthur Evans, Andrew Lang, Gilbert Murray, Frank Byron, Jevons, Sir John Linton Myres, William Warde Fowler|title=Anthropology and the Classics: Six Lectures Delivered Before the University of Oxford|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=E0oMAAAAIAAJ|year=1908|publisher=Clarendon Press|isbn=978-0-7905-5822-6}}</ref>

==Modern legacy==
[[File:Postcard with an Amazon and racehorses.jpg|thumb|upright|Postcard promoting Munich as ''Capital of German Art'' of the ''Olympia-Sommer'' 1936. The Amazon holds a longbow and a victory wreath.]] [[File:Amazone auf Sondermarke.jpg|thumb|Amazon on a special stamp promoting the 1938 German "[[brown ribbon|Brown Ribbon]]" horse races]]
The city of [[Samsun]] in modern-day [[Samsun Province]], [[Turkey]] features an ''Amazon Village'' museum, to help bring attention to the legacy of the Amazons and to promote both academic interest and tourism. The Amazon warriors have been seen as a symbol of empowerment for feminist movements. The legacy has empowered and encouraged other women to build their strength and stand against societal norms.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Carrasco |first=Sammi |date=2025-04-02 |title=The Realm of the Amazons: Warrior Women of Greek Legends |url=https://greek.mythologyworldwide.com/the-realm-of-the-amazons-warrior-women-of-greek-legends/ |access-date=2025-05-06 |website=Greek Mythology |language=en-US}}</ref> They have inspired countless amounts of women to stand up for themselves and what they believe. An annual ''Amazon Celebration Festival'' takes place in the [[Terme]] district.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.u-strasse.com/the-black-sea-village-of-the-amazons-samsun/  |title= ourney to the Black Sea village of the Amazons   |date=September 27, 2014   | publisher= Route nach Unbekannte Straße | author=Semi    | access-date= February 4, 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.todayszaman.com/newsDetail_getNewsById.action?load=detay&link=212625  |title= Village of Amazons to be recreated in Samsun park   |date=June 10, 2010   | publisher= Today's Zaman | author=    |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20140201214800/http://www.todayszaman.com/newsDetail_getNewsById.action?load=detay&link=212625 | access-date= February 4, 2021|archive-date= 2014-02-01 }}</ref>

During the [[Ottoman–Egyptian invasion of Mani]] in 1826, in the battle of Diros the women of Mani defeated the Ottoman army and for this were given the name of 'The Amazons of Diros'.<ref>P. Greenhalgh and E. Eliopoulos, 63</ref>

From 1936 to 1939, annual propaganda events, called [[Night of the Amazons]] (''Nacht der Amazonen'') were performed in Nazi Germany at the [[Nymphenburg Palace Park]] in [[Munich]].<ref>{{Citation |title=VI. Zug und Kampf der Amazonen gegen Athen |date=1875-12-31 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9783112406069-007 |work=Die Amazonen in der attischen Literatur und Kunst |pages=31–89 |publisher=De Gruyter |doi=10.1515/9783112406069-007 |isbn=9783112406069 |access-date=2022-06-19|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Announced as evening highlights of the ''International Horse Racing Week Munich-Riem'', bare-breasted variety show girls of the SS-Cavalry, 2,500 participants and international guests performed at the open-air revue. These revues served to promote an allegedly emancipated female role and a cosmopolitan and foreigner-friendly Nazi regime.{{citation needed|date=March 2022}}

===In literature and media===
====Literature and comics====
* Amazon Queen [[Hippolyta]] appears in [[William Shakespeare's]] play ''[[A Midsummer Night's Dream]]'' and also in ''[[The Two Noble Kinsmen]]'', which Shakespeare co-wrote with [[John Fletcher (playwright)|John Fletcher]].
* The Amazon queen [[Penthesilea]], and her sexual frenzy, are at the center of the drama ''[[Penthesilea (Kleist)|Penthesilea]]'' by [[Heinrich von Kleist]] in 1808.
* [[Steven Pressfield]]'s 2002 novel ''[[Last of the Amazons]]'' is a [[mythopoeia]] of Plutarch's texts, that surround [[Theseus]]'s abduction of Queen [[Antiope (Amazon)|Antiope]] and the Amazons' attack on Athens. An accurate and detailed portrayal of the Archaic Greek world, its life, people, weapons etc. dramatized ''as real as the sky''.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-691449/Band-of-sisters-the-Amazon.html#selection-681.213-681.242  |archive-url= https://archive.today/20130122023133/http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-691449/Band-of-sisters-the-Amazon.html#selection-681.213-681.242  |url-status= dead  |archive-date= January 22, 2013  |title= Band of sisters: the Amazon light cavalry.(Book Review) |date= September 22, 2002 | publisher= Archive | author= Bob Gross   | access-date= February 7, 2021}}</ref>
* [[William Moulton Marston]], alongside his wife [[Elizabeth Holloway Marston|Elizabeth Holloway]] and their lover [[Olive Byrne]], created their rendition of the mythical [[Amazons (DC Comics)|Amazons]], whose members included the superheroine [[Wonder Woman]], for [[DC Comics]]. Marston's Amazons are noteworthy for not just being physically superior to mortal men but also technologically superior, being able to create healing rays and [[Invisible Plane|undetectable jet planes]] that can be controlled through brain waves alone, although this element of Amazon society is applied inconsistently in appearances written after Marston's death.<ref>Sensation Comics #6 (June 1942)</ref>
* In [[Rick Riordan]]'s ''[[The Heroes of Olympus]]'', the Amazons appear in ''[[The Son of Neptune]]'' and ''[[The Blood of Olympus]].'' They are the founders and owners of the [[Amazon (company)|Amazon]] corporation.
* In [[Philip Armstrong]]'s historical-fantasy series, ''The Chronicles of Tupiluliuma'', the Amazons appear as the Am'azzi.
* In the [[Stieg Larsson]] novel ''[[The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest]]'', the Amazons appear as the transitional topics between sections of the book.
* [[Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo]] created the fictional queen [[Calafia]], who ruled over a kingdom of black women, living in the style of Amazons, on the  mythical [[Island of California]].
* [[Amazon Gazonga]] is a short comic series created by the ''[[Waltrip brothers]]'' in 1995. The comic centres around on a young amazon named Gazonga living in the [[Amazon rainforest]].
* [[GastroPhobia]] is a webcomic by Daisy McGuire, about the adventures of an exiled Amazon warrior and her son living in Ancient Greece, roughly 3408 years ago.

====Film and television====
* The Kazakhstani film studio "[[Kazakhfilm]]" released the film Томирис (''[[Tomyris (film)|Tomyris]]'') in late 2019. She is portrayed by {{ill|Almira Tursyn|qid=Q116848516|short=yes}}.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://tengrinews.kz/cinema/akan-sataev-raskryil-imya-aktrisyi-kotoraya-337828/|title = Акан Сатаев раскрыл имя актрисы, которая сыграет Томирис|date = 16 February 2018}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.goldenglobes.com/articles/tomiris-kazakhstan|title = Tomiris (Kazakhstan)| date=19 November 2019 }}</ref> Girls of her tribe in order to get permissions to marry, in the film, has to bring few enemies heads.
* Franchises involving several [[Tarzan]] releases, that have featured Amazon tribes (''[[Tarzan and the Amazons]]'', ''[[Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle]]'')
* In the animated series ''[[The Mysterious Cities of Gold]]'', a tribe of Amazons appeared in two episodes.
* The postscript for the 1980 film ''[[9 to 5 (film)|9 to 5]]'' mentioned that Franklin Hart was abducted by a tribe of Amazons when helping Consolidated Companies' chairman of the board Russell Tinsworthy with a project in the Brazilian jungle.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Jay|first=Joslyn|date=2020-01-24|title=9 to 5 (1980) Review: Classics Revisited #11|url=https://flickside.com/9-to-5-movie-review-1980/|access-date=2022-02-16|website=Flickside|language=en-US}}</ref>
* Amazons appear in the movies ''[[The Loves of Hercules]]'' (1960), ''Battle of the Amazons'' (1970), ''[[War Goddess]]'' (1973), ''[[Hundra]]'' (1983), ''[[Amazons (1986 film)|Amazons]]'' (1986), ''[[Deathstalker II]]'' (1987), ''[[Ronal the Barbarian]]'' (2011), ''[[Hercules (2014 film)|Hercules]]'' (2014) and [[DC Extended Universe]] films: ''[[Wonder Woman (2017 film)|Wonder Woman]]'' (2017), ''[[Justice League (film)|Justice League]]'' (2017), ''[[Wonder Woman 1984]]'' (2020), ''[[Zack Snyder's Justice League]]'' (2021).
* Amazons in television series ''[[Hercules: The Legendary Journeys]]'', ''[[Young Hercules]]'', ''[[Kaos (TV series)|Kaos]]'', ''[[Xena: Warrior Princess]]'', ''[[The Legend of the Hidden City]]'', ''[[Huntik: Secrets & Seekers]]'' and ''[[Supernatural (U.S. TV series)|Supernatural]]''.
* The two TV Star Trek series - TAS, Re.: The Loreli Signal and Star Trek TNG, Re.: Angel One feature alien women of this nature.

====Games====
Amazons are featured in the following roleplay - and video games: ''[[Diablo (series)|Diablo]]'', ''[[Heroes Unlimited]]'', ''Aliens Unlimited'', ''[[Amazon: Guardians of Eden]]'', ''[[Flight of the Amazon Queen]]'', ''[[A Total War Saga: Troy]]'', ''[[Rome: Total War]]'', ''[[Final Fantasy IV]]'', ''[[Age of Wonders: Planetfall]]'', [[The Legend of Zelda|''Legend of Zelda'' series]] and [[List of Yu-Gi-Oh! video games|''Yu-Gi-Oh'' games]], [[Zeus| Zeus - Master Of Olympus]]. In Zeus - Master Of Olympus, the Temple of Artemis has two companies of Amazon troops,and in certain main quest campaigns, they are in Themiscyra and three other [[Monarchy|queendoms]] that the protagonist has to deal with in the quests.

===Military units===
[[File:Dahomey amazon2.jpg|thumb|Dahomey Amazons, photo shot around 1890, author unknown]]
* Russian general and statesman [[Grigory Potemkin]], and then favourite of [[Catherine the Great]] created an [[Amazons Company]] in 1787. Wives and daughters of the soldiers of the [[Greek Battalion of Balaklava]] were enlisted and formed this unit.
* The '''Mino''', or '''Minon''', (''Our Mothers'') were a late 19th to early 20th-century all-female official military regiment of the former [[Kingdom of Dahomey]] (present-day [[Benin]]). Since the early 18th-century women contingents had already joined the army, usually during deployment, in order to inflate the army size. However, women proved themselves courageous and effective in active combat, and a regular unit was established. Western observers, who had allegedly perceived certain Amazon-like physical and mental qualities in these women, came up with the trivial epithet [[Dahomey Amazons]].<ref>{{cite web |url= https://archive.org/details/missiontogelelek01burtuoft/page/n15/mode/2up  |title= A mission to Gelele, King of Dahome : with notices of the so-called "Amazons" the grand customs, the human sacrifices, the present state of the slave trade and the negro's place in nature  | publisher= Archive | author=Sir Burton, Richard Francis    |year= 1893 | access-date= February 6, 2021}}</ref>
*The Libyan [[Amazonian Guard]] created by Muammar Gaddafi in the early 1980s.

===Social and religious activism===
* During the period 1905–1913, members of the militant [[Suffragette]] movement were frequently referred to as "Amazons" in books and newspaper articles.<ref>Wilson, Gretchen "With All Her Might: The Life of [[Gertrude Harding]], Militant Suffragette" (Holmes & Meier Publishing, April 1998)</ref>
* In [[Ukraine]] Katerina Tarnovska leads a group called the Asgarda which claims to be a new tribe of Amazons.<ref name="pri.org">{{cite web|url=http://www.pri.org/stories/politics-society/social-justice/ukraine%E2%80%99s-asgarda-martial-arts-program-recasts-amazon-warrior-women-13825.html |title=Ukraine's Asgarda martial arts program recasts Amazon warrior women &#124; Public Radio International |publisher=Pri.org |access-date=2014-01-25}}</ref> Tarnovska believes that the Amazons are the direct ancestors of Ukrainian women, and she has created an all-female martial art for her group, based on another form of fighting called [[Combat Hopak]], but with a special emphasis on self-defense.<ref name="pri.org"/>

===Science===
The [[Neptune trojan]]s, asteroids 60° ahead or beyond [[Neptune]] on its orbit, are individually named after mythological Amazons.

==See also==
{{Portal|Ancient Greece|Myths}}
{{div col}}
* [[Action hero]]ine
* [[Amazons (DC Comics)]]
* [[Matriarchy]]
* [[List of Amazons]]
* [[List of female action heroes and villains]]
* [[List of women warriors in folklore]]
* [[Onna-bugeisha]], female warrior in Japanese nobility
* [[Shieldmaiden]], female warrior in northern Europe
* [[Timeline of women in ancient warfare]]
* [[Tomyris]]
* [[Urduja]], from [[Philippine mythology]]
* [[Women in the military]]
* [[Women warriors in literature and culture]]
{{div col end}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

== Sources ==
===Primary===
* {{cite web |author=Homer |title=Iliad |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0133 |publisher=Tufts University |access-date=January 31, 2021 |ref={{harvid|Homer, Iliad}}}}
* {{cite web |author=Diodorus Siculus |title=Bibliotheca Historica, Books I-V |publisher=Tufts University |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2008.01.0540%3Abook%3D1%3Achapter%3Dpr |access-date=February 2, 2021 |ref={{harvid|Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica, Books I-V}}}}
* {{cite web |author=Herodotus |title=The Histories |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0126%3Abook%3D1%3Achapter%3D1%3Asection%3D0 |publisher=Tufts University |access-date=January 31, 2021 |ref={{harvid|Herodotus, The Histories}}}}
* {{cite web |author=Bacchylides |title=Epinicians |publisher=Tufts University |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0063%3Abook%3DEp%3Apoem%3D1 |access-date=January 31, 2021 |ref={{harvid|Bacchylides, Epinicians}}}}
* {{cite web |author=Aeschylus |title=Prometheus Bound |publisher=Tufts University |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0010 |access-date=January 31, 2021 |ref={{harvid|Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound}}}}
* {{cite web |author=Aeschylus |title=Suppliant Women |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0015%3Acard%3D1 |publisher=Tufts University |access-date=January 31, 2021 |ref={{harvid|Aeschylus, Suppliant Women}}}}
* {{cite web |last=Hygnius |first=Gaius Julius |title=Fabulae |url=https://www.theoi.com/Text/HyginusFabulae1.html |publisher=Theoi Project |access-date=February 2, 2021}}

===Secondary===
* {{cite web |title=Theoi Greek Mythology |url=https://www.theoi.com/ |publisher=Theoi Project |access-date=January 31, 2021}}
* {{cite journal |last=Hinge |first=George |year=2005 |title=Herodot zur skythischen Sprache. Arimaspen, Amazonen und die Entdeckung des Schwarzen Meeres |language=de |journal=Glotta |volume=81 |pages=86–115 |url=https://herodot.glossa.dk/arimasp.html}}
* {{cite encyclopedia |last=Mayor |first=Adrienne |year=2017 |article=Amazons in the Iranian World |encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia Iranica |url=http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/amazons-ii}}
* {{cite encyclopedia |last=Shahbazi |first=A.S. |year=1989 |article=Amazons |encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia Iranica |url=http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/amazons}}

==Further reading==
{{refbegin|30em}}
* Adams, Maeve. "Amazons." ''The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies'' (2016): 1–4.
* "AMAZONS Women of the Steppe and the Idea of the Female Warrior". In: Ball, Warwick. ''The Eurasian Steppe: People, Movement, Ideas''. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2022. pp.&nbsp;117–135. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781474488075-010
* Dowden, Ken. “THE AMAZONS: DEVELOPMENT AND FUNCTIONS”. In: ''Rheinisches Museum Für Philologie'' 140, no. 2 (1997): 97–128. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41234269.
* Fialko, Elena (2018). "Scythian Female Warriors in the South of Eastern Europe". In: ''Folia Praehistorica Posnaniensia'' 22 (lipiec), 29–47. https://doi.org/10.14746/fpp.2017.22.02.
* Guliaev, V. I. (2003). "Amazons in the Scythia: New finds at the Middle Don, Southern Russia". In: ''World Archaeology'', 35:1, 112–125. DOI: 10.1080/0043824032000078117
* Hardwick, Lorna (1990). "Ancient Amazons - Heroes, Outsiders or Women?". In: ''Greece & Rome'', 37, pp.&nbsp;14–36. doi:10.1017/S0017383500029521
* Liccardo, Salvatore. "Different Gentes, Same Amazons: The Myth of Women Warriors at the Service of Ethnic Discourse." ''Medieval History Journal'' 21.2 (2018): 222–250.
* Mayor, Adrienne. ''The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World''. Princeton University Press, 2014. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt7zvndm. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/26430667 online review]
* Maartel Bremer, Jan. "THE AMAZONS IN THE IMAGINATION OF THE GREEKS". In: ''Acta Antiqua'' 40, 1-4 (2000): 51–59. Accessed Jul 17, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1556/aant.40.2000.1-4.6
* Toler, Pamela D. ''Women warriors: An unexpected history'' (Beacon Press, 2019).
* [[Dietrich von Bothmer|von Rothmer, Dietrich]], ''Amazons in Greek Art'' ([[Oxford University Press]], 1957)
* Vovoura, Despoina. “Women Warriors(?) And the Amazon Myth: The Evidence of Female Burials with Weapons in the Black Sea Area”. In: ''The Greeks and Romans in the Black Sea and the Importance of the Pontic Region for the Graeco-Roman World (7th Century BCE-5th Century CE): 20 Years On (1997-2017): Proceedings of the Sixth International Congress on Black Sea Antiquities (Constanţa – 18–22 September 2017)''. Edited by Gocha R. Tsetskhladze, Alexandru Avram, and James Hargrave. Archaeopress, 2021. pp.&nbsp;118–28. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1pdrqhw.22.
* Wilde, Lyn Webster. ''On the trail of the women warriors: The Amazons in myth and history'' ( Macmillan, 2000).

===Other languages===
* Bergmann, F. G. ''Les Amazones dans l'histoire et dans la fable'' (1853) {{in lang|fr}}
* Klugmann, A. ''[https://archive.org/details/dieamazoneninde00klgoog Die Amazonen in der attischen Literatur und Kunst]'' (1875) {{in lang|de}}
* Krause, H. L. ''Die Amazonensage'' (1893) {{in lang|de}}
* Lacour, F. ''Les Amazones'' (1901) {{in lang|fr}}
* Mordtmann, Andreas David. ''Die Amazonen'' ([[Hanover]], 1862) {{in lang|de}}
* Pauly-Wissowa, ''[[Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft]]''
* [[W. H. Roscher|Roscher, W. H.]], ''Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie'' {{in lang|de}}
* Santos, Theobaldo Miranda. ''Lendas e mitos do Brasil'' (Companhia Editora Nacional, 1979) {{in lang|pt}}
* Stricker, W. ''Die Amazonen in Sage und Geschichte'' (1868) {{in lang|de}}
{{refend}}

==External links==
{{commons category}}
{{wiktionary|Amazon}}
{{Wikiquote}}
{{EB1911 poster|Amazons}}
* {{Cite NIE|wstitle=Amazons |short=x}}
* [https://www.amazons-info.com/ Wounded Amazon]
* [https://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/h#a828 Herodotus via Gutenberg]
* [http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mamazon.html Straight Dope: Amazons]
* [http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/women1/a/amazons1.htm Amazon women in the Mongolian steppe] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130120015209/http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/women1/a/amazons1.htm |date=2013-01-20 }}
* [https://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/amazon-warrior-women-background/1466/ Amazon mtDNA found in Mongolia]
* [https://iconographic.warburg.sas.ac.uk/category/vpc-taxonomy-000320 The Warburg Institute Iconographic Database (images of Amazons)]

{{Greek religion}}

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Amazons (Greek mythology)| ]]
[[Category:Legendary tribes in classical historiography]]
[[Category:Mythology of Heracles]]
[[Category:Children of Ares]]
[[Category:Scythia]]
[[Category:Single-gender worlds]]
[[Category:Women of the Trojan war]]
[[Category:Women warriors]]
[[Category:Etymology of California]]
[[Category:Deeds of Ares]]