The Amazons

A web page of
Eckard Wolff-Postler

The Amazons in Athens

Prologue(s)

What happened to bring this people of nomads, the Amazons, nearly 500 years after the Troian war again in conflict with the Greek and especially with the Athens?
Legends may be able to give us a hint here.
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Herakles as a hero, for one ...

It was the sixth labor for Herakles, to bring the Belt of Hippolyte. She was queen of the Amazons, living at the river Theormodon, a people, strong in war, for they attended to manly virtues.
Now Hippolyte had obtained the Belt of Ares as a token of her excellence above all others. Herakles, however, had been ordered to acquire this belt, for Admete, the daughter of Eurystheus desired it ...

When he reached the port of Themiscyra, Hippolyte went to see him, asked his desire, and promised to hand over the belt. But Hera, jealous of Herakles, in the guise of an Amazone spread the rumour, the strangers had come to abduct the queen. Promptly the Amazons attacked the ship on horseback. Herakles, seeing them coming in arms, suspecting treason, killed the queen and took her belt. After he - invulnerable by the hide of the Nemean lion - had subdued the Amazons he set out for Troia.

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... and Theseus for another
Plutarch writes:

... concerning his (Theseus') voyage to the Pontus Euxinus (the Black Sea), Philochorus and others write that he had travelled together with Herakles, offering his services in the war against the Amazons and that he had been given Antiope (the Amazon) as reward for his virtues. But the maiority, among them Pherecydes, Hellanicus and Herodot write, that he has undertaken this voyage many years after Herakles with a fleet under his own command and he captivated the Amazon - a more likely story, for there is nowhere mentioned that any one accompanying him in this venture had captured an Amazon. Bion adds that he resorted to deception to capture her and had to flee, for the Amazons, so he writes, facing men unbiassedly, had eschewed Theseus in no way when he had landed at their coast, but had sent gifts to his ship. But he invited Antiope, who had brought the gifts to his ship, promply set sail and abducted her.
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There seems to be a bit of gallimaufry in Greek history.

Though the otherwise highly esteemed Plato states:

"The story how they (the Athenians) fought off the Amazons and also earlier invaders intruding our country [...] is a story for which we have to little time to tell it properly ...".

we will take out a little more time for it.

On the one hand it has been the great hero Herakles who started quarrelling with the Amazons, on the other the Athenian Theseus who came in conflict with them.
Knowing that Greece at this time consisted of single (associated to each other, rivalling, antagonizing) city states, one may easily imagine that a storyteller in Thebe, Athens, Mykene, Sparta, Korinthos would have appointed the appropriate city hero as the main character of the story and the following generations had to rack their brains over who the real hero was in the first place.
This dilemma becomes visible at Plutarch (46 - 120 p.Chr, roman writer), who is drawing his knowledge from old sources and is in doubt as much as we are. But he says:

"Who are we to be surprised that things that long bygone are described that differently."

Also the gullimaufry of the names makes that clear. In one case the abducted Amazone is named Hippolyte, in the other her name is Antiope.

But now here's the story, how the Amazons raided Athens.

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The Amazons in Athens

Plutarch tells us, what he, studying old scripts, found out about the raid of the Amazons on Athens. The events fall into the time of about 700 b.Chr., when Theseus had "placated" the city states of Attica and had laid the corner stone for the florescence of Athens.

This was the cause and the reason for the invasion of the Amazons in Attika, which definitly was no simple and "womanly" enterprise. For it is impossible that they pitched camp in the middle of the town and battled near the small river Pnyx next to the temple of the Muses without having first conquered the surrounding country and reached the city uncallenged. That in fact they camped in town is certain and satisfactorily confirmed by the names the places here are still bearing and the graves and monuments of those being killed in this battle.

When both armies came into view a long pause ensued and doubt which side would attack first. Finally Theseus advanced, after having sacrificed to the goddess of Fear following an oracle he had received. This happened in the month of Boedromion (August), in which the Athenias to this day celebrate the festivity Boedromia.

Clidemius, with effort for detailedness writes, that the left wing of the Amazons moved to the place which still is called Amazonium and the right moved in direction of the Pnyx next to Chrysa and this wing encountered the Athenians, who were sallying from behind the temple of the Muses. The graves of those killed in this action one may see along the road leading to the gate of Piraeus at the chapel of the hero Chalcodon. The Athenians were driven back and retreated from the women to the temple of the Furies. Enforcements brougt into battle from the Palladium, Ardettus, and the Lyceum attacked the right wing and drove it back to the tents by which action many Amazons were killed.

Finally after four months, by mediation of Hippolyta (for so the historians call the Amazon that married Theseus - not Antiope), a peace was made, even if others write that she was killed by an arrow of the Amazon Molpadia, while fighting on Theseus' side and that the pillar standing at the temple of the Olympic ground was erected in her honour.

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Small wonder the history gets a bit mixed up on events after so long a time. For indeed, it is reported at the same time, that the injured Amazons were secretly sent to Chalcis on orders of Antiope, where many were amended by her provision, but those who died were buried on the place called Amazonium. That in fact this war had been ended by a peace is obvious, as well by the name of the place next to the temple of Theseus for the oath taken there called "Horcomoium" as by the ancient sacrifice which is celebrated on the eve of the festival of Theseus on behalf ot the Amazons.

The inhabitants of Megara show a place where many Amazons are buried at the road from the market to a place called "Rhus", where a rhomboid building stands. There are also reports that others have died near Chaeronea and buried at a brook formerly named Thermodon, now called Hemon.

Above that, it seems that the passage of the Amazons through Thessalia did not proceed without resistance, since there are many monuments near Scotussa and Cynoscephalae.

So far this is all worth telling about the Amazons. The report, the author of the script "The Theseides" delivers about this surrection of the Amazons, how Antiope takes revenge on Theseus for her rebuff and his marriage with Phaedra, with invading the city with a band of Amazons, is demonstrably nothing but poetry and fiction. True is, however, that Theseus married Phaedra, but that was after Antiopes death. From her he had a son named Hippolytus or - as Pindar writes - Demophon.


So far the findings of Plutarch.