The Amazons- who were they?
- where were they from?
-divine connection/"daughters" of?
- Artemis - answer-- warrior women, Greek but savage and live far away
-lived in the Black Sea area, Caucasus Mountains, society free of men
- "daughters" of Ares or Harmonia (not genealogically) --> wa...
CLST 311- Warrior Women of Myth/Amazon
Women
The Amazons- who were they?
- where were they from?
-divine connection/"daughters" of?
- Artemis - answer-- warrior women, Greek but savage and live far away
-lived in the Black Sea area, Caucasus Mountains, society free of men
- "daughters" of Ares or Harmonia (not genealogically) --> war-like, exotic/exciting, appeal in greek lit.
- Artemis patron goddess--> dressed like her (short tunic), usually one breast exposed
Amazons - society - answer-- female only, no men live among them
Amazons- activities - answer-- fighting, hunting, riding
- no weaving or any expected activities for women --> slaves do that
Amazons- sexual practices
x 2 explainations - answer-- sex with outsiders--> need children
- attempts to explain this mythology --> they capture men to have sex and kill all the male kids
OR
--> agreement with nearby community, have sex, keep only female kids
Amazon Etymology - answer-- a- mazos --> mastos= breast, assuming greek roots
- false ! doesn't stand up linguistically
Archaic and Classic Amazons
- breasts? - answer-- right breast exposed, but ex. Amazon from Amazon sarcophagus has none exposed
so exceptions
Amazons as Unnatural women - answer-- fearsome, reject traditional role
- autonomous
- don't marry
- formidable enemies/great warriors (all heroes must face them)--> conquer them militarily and sexually
- female monster/threat to society
Evidence for the Amazons? -burials of women - answer-- found near Black Sea, Scythia
- are tribes where woman were fighters but part of a larger tribe with men
- buried with weapons (1/3 of women)
- nomadic tribes --> all play role in defense
- heard to them to create origin of myth? roots in reality?
The Amazonomachy - battle scenes - Greeks vs. Amazons:
Herakles and the Amazon Hippolyta
- scene at?/when
, - the belt of Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, symbolize?
- Hera - answer-- temple of zeus at Olympia c. 460 BCE
belt- (mirror and hierarchy to Homeric Greece) Herakles tasked to retrieve her belt
- symbolic--> clothes held on by belt, if loosen it sends a sexual message --> act of seizing it as sexual
assault (in some versions she takes it off willingly)
- Hera hates him --> tells the Amazons he wants to kill their queen, they attack and he kills Hippolyta
Achilles and the Amazon Penthesileia
- hero of ?
- queen is ally of?
- as he stabs her? symbolize? - answer-- hero of the Trojan war
- ally of Troy
-she meets his eyes and he falls for her--> she dies
Symbol- respectable women do not meet the eyes of men (strange men) --> eyes reveal the soul
Theseus and the Amazon Antiope/Hippolyte
- Amazonomachy of the Parthenon depicts?
- invasion of Attica - answer-- he abducts her
- invasion--> history to Athenians, the Amazons attack the city and Theseus defends them
Amazons as Persians/Persian Clothing
- Persian invasion
- implications of this? - answer-- defeated by the Greeks even though they had a huge army
- around this time start to see Amazons in Persian clothes -> Greeks admired Persians (huge empire,
military prowess) , sense of Amazons as the other/threat to normal way of life
Greek Renaissance of the 8th Century
- after collapse of?
- Archaic Greece period?
- important features of this time? x3 - answer-- 776-479 BCE
-collapse of the bronze age
-period of prosperity and social/cultural/political change
- Greek alphabet--> adapted from Phoenecian, spreads fast in Greek world
- pan-hellenism and pan-hellenistic sanctuaries and games at Olympia, Delphi, Delos, Nemea, Isthmia -->
pilgrimages to mainland greece
Greek Renaissance- rise of the polis
- governance?
- includes area?
- Agora
- c. 750? - answer-= city state
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