The Amazons (Ἀμαζόνες) — mythic land of Homer's Odyssey

The Amazons — Daughters of Ares, the war-women of the Thermodon. Penthesileia at Troy (Aethiopis (Epic Cycle); Il. 3.189).

On the plain where the Thermodon meets the Black Sea rules a nation of horse-riding women who live for war and suffer no man to govern them. Heracles came for a queen's war-belt and left a queen dead; Penthesileia rode to Troy and broke Achilles' heart in the moment he killed her.

Far east along the Black Sea's southern shore, where the river Thermodon pours into the bay of Themiscyra, lies the country of the Amazons — a whole nation of women who till their own plain, muster their own armies, and worship Ares and Artemis. Homer's warriors call them antianeirai, 'the equals of men,' and mean it as the highest compliment a Greek soldier can pay. Their queens rule by right of a war-belt, the zoster, given by Ares himself.

It was for that belt that Heracles came. His ninth labour, demanded by Eurystheus for the princess Admete, was to fetch the girdle of Queen Hippolyte. And here is the tragedy: it nearly ended in peace. Hippolyte, taken with the hero, came down to his ship and offered the belt freely. But Hera, walking among the Amazons in disguise, whispered that strangers were carrying off their queen. The women charged; Heracles, thinking himself betrayed, killed Hippolyte, stripped the belt, and cut his way back to sea.

Theseus sailed on that expedition and took his own prize — the Amazon Antiope. The Amazons answered by doing what no Persian army would manage for another seven centuries: they invaded Attica and camped inside Athens itself, fighting the Athenians at the foot of the Areopagus. The war-women's assault became the Athenians' favourite bedtime story about themselves, carved on the Parthenon as proof that civilisation had once trembled — and held.

Their most glorious hour came last. When Troy was buckling, Penthesileia — a daughter of Ares who had accidentally killed a fellow queen and been purified by Priam — led twelve companions to fight for the Trojans. She scattered the Greeks until Achilles' spear found her; and as he caught her falling, their eyes met, and he fell in love in the very instant of killing her. When foul-mouthed Thersites jeered at his grief, Achilles killed him with one blow.

Even the Argonauts, no timid crew, hugged the coast past the Thermodon's mouth and thanked the wind for not forcing them ashore. That is the Amazons' place on the map: the eastern rim where the known world's rules run backwards, where women wage the wars and write the terms — and every hero who tested them came away with a scar, a bride, or a story he told for the rest of his life.

Denizens

• Penthesileia (Πενθεσίλεια) — Daughter of Ares; died gloriously at Troy beneath Achilles' spear
• Hippolyte (Ἱππολύτη) — Queen whose war-belt from Ares was the object of Heracles' ninth labour
• Antiope (Ἀντιόπη) — Carried off by Theseus; mother of Hippolytos
• Otrere (Ὀτρήρη) — Beloved of Ares and mother of Amazon queens

Perils

• No man's land: The Amazons suffer no man to rule them, and visiting heroes have a habit of leaving with brides or belts. Expect to be treated as a precedent.
• The Hera problem: Even a deal struck in good faith can dissolve in an hour — one goddess in disguise, one rumour through the camp, and the whole shore is cavalry.
• Mounted archers: They fight from horseback with bow and battle-axe, on a plain they know and you do not. The Argonauts took one look and kept rowing.
• Souvenir tax: Everything here that glitters is regalia, and regalia is sovereignty. Ask Hippolyte what lending the girdle costs.

“On the day the Amazons came, the equals of men.” — Iliad 3.189

Traditional location: Themiscyra on the Thermodon — Terme, Black Sea coast of Turkey. The map plants them where every ancient source does: the plain of the river Thermodon (the modern Terme Çayı) on Turkey's Black Sea shore, with the harbour of Themiscyra as their capital.