Introduction: The appeal of the Amazons

Abstract

The fearless ancient Amazons have been seen as forebears and prototypes by lesbians, feminists, and transgender men. In this introduction, I will explore why the Greek legends of the Amazons lend themselves to such interpretation. Ancient Greek literature details how the Amazons challenged patriarchy, lived without men, and defeated their male enemies, thus setting a precedent that would later be emulated by feminists and lesbians. Though the Amazons are clearly designated as women they are also identified with men in ancient Greek lore; in ancient Greek vase painting, they wear masculine outfits and engage in masculine habits, including fighting and hunting. Thus I will examine the Amazons’ gender transgression in ancient Greek contexts in order to understand how and why these myths set the stage for the adoption of the Amazons as role models by later generations of gender nonconformists. I will also briefly examine the history behind those myths, a history which is just as important to lesbian and other queer communities as the myths which it spawned. Finally, I will weave my analysis of the ancient Greek ideology of Amazons with innovative, new research on the reception of the Amazons found in the six other articles that make up this special edition. These essays explore the powerful place of Amazons and Amazon-like women in the imaginaries of peoples ranging from the ancient Romans to modern lesbian feminists, and the importance of historical and legendary warrior women who defied patriarchy and colonialism in locales ranging from the West to Africa to India.

Keywords:

• Amazons
• lesbian
• feminism
• transgender
• matriarchy

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Ella Ben-Hagai, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Lesbian Studies for her incredible support during this process, Esther Rothblum, previous Editor-in-Chief of the journal for her encouragement of this work in its infancy, the six contributors to this issue whose dedication and brilliance shines through their articles to enlighten us all, Sarah Brucia Breitenfeld, who co-organized the panel at the Society for Classical Studies Annual Meeting in 2022 from which this issue arose, and Marcia Gallo for her suggestions on lesbian history. A special thank you is due to Blanche Wiesen Cook, who, years ago during a job interview, looked at me and said “You’re going to prove that the Amazons existed? That’s great!” I will be forever grateful to Blanche for her support of my career; she is the lesbian Amazon whose generosity inspired me to carry forward with this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 All translations are mine.  Blundell (1998), pp. 55–56, Goldberg (1998), pp. 89–100. Morales (2007) identifies a number of functions of myth, including but not limited to escapism, projecting ideology, providing (fictive) ancestry, and queering sexuality.

2 On myths of ancestry, see Morales (2007), ch. 1.

3 On the use of the Amazons by lesbian feminists, see further Ford (2024), Pistone (2024) in this issue.

4 Plutarch Greek Questions 45 (=Moralia 302a) tells the story of how Heracles took the Amazon Hippolyte’s double-headed axe, the labrys.

5 On the former, see Oliver (2023), Fowler (2023), Ford (2024), Pistone (2024), and Dodson (2024) in this issue; on the latter, see Rabinowitz (2024) in this issue.

6 On alabastra as women’s vases, see Rabinowitz (2002), p. 107.

7 Cf. Corso (2023).

8 Plutarch (Theseus 26) does also note that the Amazons were philandroi, which Rabinowitz in this issue translates as “well-disposed to men.” The context of this passage does warrant such a translation, as it is when the Amazon Antiope approaches the visiting king of Athens Theseus’ ship to give him gifts. He returns the favor by abducting her and taking her to Athens. It should also be noted that Plutarch wrote more than five centuries after Hellanicus. The same can be said of Diodorus, who, as I will discuss below, describes the Amazons as living in a matriarchal function and ruling over men. In the 5^th century BCE account of Herodotus (4.110-17), the Amazons are captured by the Greeks and taken on board ships headed from Themiscyra, the Amazon homeland on the Black Sea, but kill their captors. They then meet and mate with Scythian men, forming a new tribe, the Sauromatians. They cease to be ethnically Amazons when they marry the Scythians. In Herodotus, the marriage of the Amazons to the Scythians seems to form an aetiological purpose, that is to explain the warlike nature of Sauromatian women.

9 See especially Ford (2024) and Pistone (2024) in this issue.

10 I have translated the Greek myself from the edition of Meineke. An online, unredacted English translation of Strabo’s story of the Amazons can be found at https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/11E*.html.

11 The earliest instance of this version of the Amazon myth may predate Diodorus. According to Stephanus of Byzantium, Ephorus (FGrHist 70 F 60b), writing in the fourth century BCE, told a similar tale, except that he noted that the Amazons were called Sauromatians in his day, which confuses the matter. See further Dowden (1997), pp. 11–12. Amazons are shown among men on Greek vases at an earlier date, although the context of such depictions is difficult to discern. See further Penrose (2016), pp. 133–136; Bothmer (1957), pp. 97–100.

12 I have translated this text myself. An English translation by Oldfather may be found at https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/home.html.

13 Other etymologies of the term Amazon have been proposed stemming from Greek and other languages. See further Blok (1995), esp. pp. 21–30; Mayor (2014), pp. 85–88. I have here decided to focus on the best-known etymology, that of Hellanicus, as it is most relevant to the purpose of this article.

14 On courage as a marker of gender diversity in other ancient Greek texts, see further Penrose (2016), esp. pp. 38–43.

15 Some examples of Amazonomachy scenes are found on the Mausoleum reliefs, now housed in the British Museum (on which see below); examples on vases include Figures 4, 5, and 7.

16 Burials of women in the Caucasus region predate the earliest Greek representations of Amazons in literature and artwork by at least a century. See further Ateshi (2011), pp. 11–13, 43; Penrose (2016), 138; cf. Ivantchik (2013)

17 The case for Sauromatian clothing in Greek vase painting is less clear. On the literary connections between Amazons and Sauromatians, see above n. 8.

18 E.g. Lysias 2.4-5; Pseudo-Apollodorus Bibliotheke 2.5.9; Plutarch Theseus 27-8. The Amazon defeat of their Greek captors in Herodotus (4.110) stands as an exception.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Walter Duvall Penrose,

Walter Duvall Penrose, Jr. is Associate Professor of History at San Diego State University, specializing in the History of Gender and Sexuality. He is the author of Postcolonial Amazons: Female Masculinity and Courage in Ancient Greek and Sanskrit Literature (Oxford 2016). Walter has also published essays and journal articles on the reception of Sappho from antiquity to the early Renaissance, the role of the Amazons in Wonder Woman (DC) and Troy Fall of a City (BBC/Netflix), queer pedagogy in the Classics classroom, homoeroticism in ancient tomb paintings, conceptions of disability in ancient Greece, as well as homoeroticism and gender in South Asian history.