According to Smithsonian Magazine, Homer’s Iliad was the first to mention them in the eighth century B.C. He described them as “antianeirai,” which many scholars have translated as “the opposite of men,” “antagonistic to men,” and “the equal of men.”
Herodotus called the descendants of these marriages the Sauromatae, or Sarmatians. Writing in the fifth century B.C., he said “the women of the Sauromatae have continued from that day to the present to observe their ancient customs, frequently hunting on horseback with their husbands…in war taking the field and wearing the very same dress as the men….Their marriage law lays it down, that no girl shall wed until she has killed a man in battle.”
By varying accounts, Theseus either stole the queen, had Heracles steal her for him, or the queen fell in love with Theseus and willingly left with him on his ship.
Zde/Archaeological Museum of DelphiTheseusand Antiope, as pictured on the Treasury of Athenians at Delphi, from 500 BC.
In retaliation, Aphrodite cursed his stepmother Queen Phaedra of Athens — the second wife of Theseus — making her fall in love with Hippolytus. However, Hippolytus rejected her advances, leading to his death and Phaedra’s suicide.
Heracles And Hippolyta’s Girdle
It is said that “after the death of Hector she [Penthesilea] slew many of the Greeks.” And the only warrior who could match her prowess was the mighty Achilles himself.
A surviving synopsis from a lost ancient epic, the Aethiopis, recalls that Achilles only defeated her after she displayed “great prowess” on the battlefield.
So enchanted by her beauty and martial skills was Achilles that one of his fellow warriors, Thersites, mocked him for his affections. Angry, Achilles slew Thersites for his rudeness.
Diodorus said Alexander was happy to oblige, and after nearly two weeks of sex, sent Thalestris home with presents — and presumably an heir.
Joanbanjo/Wikimedia CommonsA gold vessel from a burial site of real-life warrior women.
As summarized by Mayor:
More evidence came in the 1990s, when archaeologists excavated burial mounds of ancient women in the former Soviet bloc. These graves contained not only rich ornamentation but also weapons.
Then, in Kazakhstan, archaeologist Jeannine Davis-Kimball uncovered deceased women who were bow-legged from a lifetime of riding horses, while another woman was buried with 40 arrows tipped in bronze.
As Davis-Kimball told The New York Times in 1997: “These women were warriors of some sort. They were not necessarily fighting battles all the time, like a Genghis Khan, but protecting their herds and grazing territory when they had to. If they had been fighting all the time, more of the skeletons would show signs of violent deaths.”
While their mythological portrayal is somewhat exaggerated — most notably, their supposed tendency to live in a female-only or female-dominated society — warrior women who rode into combat alongside men certainly existed in the steppes of Eurasia, inspiring the Greeks to write enthralling stories of their beauty and martial prowess.
Little did they know, those stories would inspire and entertain more than 2,000 years later.
