Amazons The Amazons ( , " Amazónes " , singular , " Amazōn " ) , also known as Oiorpata in the Scythian language , are a nation of all - female warriors in Greek mythology and Classical antiquity . Herodotus placed them in a region bordering Scythia in Sarmatia ( modern territory of Ukraine ) . Other historiographers place them in Asia Minor , or sometimes Libya . Notable queens of the Amazons are Penthesilea , who participated in the Trojan War , and her sister Hippolyta , whose magical girdle , given to her by her father Ares , was the object of one of the labours of Hercules . Amazonian raiders were often depicted in battle with Greek warriors in amazonomachies in classical art . The Amazons have become associated with many historical people throughout the Roman Empire period and Late Antiquity . In Roman historiography , there are various accounts of Amazon raids in Asia Minor . From the Early Modern period , their name has become a term for female warriors in general . Etymology . The origin of the word is uncertain . It may be derived from an Iranian ethnonym " * ha - mazan - " " warriors " , a word attested as a denominal verb in Hesychius of Alexandria ' s gloss ( " " hamazakaran " : ' to make war ' in Persian " ) and which also appears together with the Indo - Iranian root " * kar - " " make " in Sanskrit " karma " . Alternatively , a Greek derivation from " " " manless , without husbands " ( " a - " privative and a derivation of " * man - " also found in Slavic " muzh " ) has been proposed , an explanation deemed " unlikely " by Hjalmar Frisk . 19th century scholarship also connected the term to the ethnonym Amazigh . A further explanation proposes Iranian * " ama - janah " " virility - killing " as source . Among Classical Greeks , " amazon " was given a popular etymology as from " a - mazos " " without breast " , connected with an etiological tradition that Amazons had their right breast cut off or burnt out , so they would be able to throw their javelins ; there is no indication of such a practice in works of art , in which the Amazons are always represented with both breasts , although the left is frequently covered ( see photos in article ) . Origins . The legendary Amazons are believed to have lived in Pontus , which is part of modern - day Turkey near the southern shore of the Euxine Sea ( the Black Sea ) . There they formed an independent kingdom under the government of a queen named Hippolyta or Hippolyte ( " loose , unbridled mare " ) . The Amazons were supposed to have founded many towns , amongst them Smyrna , Ephesus , Sinope , and Paphos . According to the dramatist Aeschylus , in the distant past they had lived in Scythia ( modern Crimea ) , at the " Palus Maeotis " ( " Lake Maeotis " , the Sea of Azov ) . According to Plutarch , the Amazons lived in and about the Don river , which the Greeks called the Tanais ; but which was called by the Scythians the " Amazon " . The Amazons later moved to Themiscyra ( modern Terme ) on the River Thermodon ( the Terme river in northern Turkey ) . Herodotus called them " Androktones " ( " killers of men " ) , and he stated that in the Scythian language they were called " Oiorpata " , which he asserted had this meaning . The myth . In some versions of the myth , no men were permitted to have sexual encounters or reside in Amazon country ; but once a year , in order to prevent their race from dying out , they visited the Gargareans , a neighbouring tribe . The male children who were the result of these visits were either killed , sent back to their fathers or exposed in the wilderness to fend for themselves ; the girls were kept and brought up by their mothers , and trained in agricultural pursuits , hunting , and the art of war . In other versions when the Amazons went to war they would not kill all the men . Some they would take as slaves , and once or twice a year they would have sex with their slaves . The intermarriage of Amazons and men from other tribes was also used to explain the origin of various people ; for example , the story of the Amazons settling with the Scythians ( Herodotus Histories 4 . 110 . 1 - 117 . 1 ) . In the " Iliad " , the Amazons were referred to as " Antianeirai " ( " those who fight like men " ) . The Amazons appear in Greek art of the Archaic period and in connection with several Greek legends . They invaded Lycia , but were defeated by Bellerophon , who was sent against them by Iobates , the king of that country , in the hope that he might meet his death at their hands . The tomb of Myrine is mentioned in the " Iliad " ; later interpretation made of her an Amazon : according to Diodorus , Queen Myrine led her Amazons to victory against Libya and much of Gorgon . They attacked the Phrygians , who were assisted by Priam , then a young man . In his later years , however , towards the end of the Trojan War , his old opponents took his side against the Greeks under their queen Penthesilea " of Thracian birth " , who was slain by Achilles . One of the tasks imposed upon Heracles by Eurystheus was to obtain possession of the girdle of the Amazonian queen Hippolyta . He was accompanied by his friend Theseus , who carried off the princess Antiope , sister of Hippolyta , an incident which led to a retaliatory invasion of Attica , in which Antiope perished fighting by the side of Theseus . In some versions , however , Theseus marries Hippolyta and in others , he marries Antiope and she does not die ; by this marriage with the Amazon Theseus had a son Hippolytus . The battle between the Athenians and Amazons is often commemorated in an entire genre of art , amazonomachy , in marble bas - relief s such as from the Parthenon or the sculptures of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus . The Amazons are also said to have undertaken an expedition against the island of Leuke , at the mouth of the Danube , where the ashes of Achilles had been deposited by Thetis . The ghost of the dead hero appeared and so terrified the horses , that they threw and trampled upon the invaders , who were forced to retire . Pompey is said to have found them in the army of Mithridates . They are heard of in the time of Alexander , when some of the king ' s biographers make mention of Amazon Queen Thalestris visiting him and becoming a mother by him ( the story is known from the " Alexander Romance " ) . However , several other biographers of Alexander dispute the claim , including the highly regarded secondary source , Plutarch . In his writing he makes mention of a moment when Alexander ' s secondary naval commander , Onesicritus , was reading the Amazon passage of his Alexander history to King Lysimachus of Thrace who was on the original expedition : the king smiled at him and said " And where was I , then ? " The Roman writer Virgil ' s characterization of the Volsci an warrior maiden Camilla in the " Aeneid " borrows heavily from the myth of the Amazons . Jordanes ' " Getica " ( c . 560 ) , purporting to give the earliest history of the Goths , relates that the Goths ' ancestors , descendants of Magog , originally dwelt within Scythia , on the Sea of Azov between the Dnieper and Don Rivers . After a few centuries , following an incident where the Goths ' women successfully fended off a raid by a neighboring tribe , while the menfolk were off campaigning against Pharaoh Vesosis , the women formed their own army under Marpesia and crossed the Don , invading Asia . Her sister Lampedo remained in Europe to guard the homeland . They procreated with men once a year . These Amazons conquered Armenia , Syria , and all of Asia Minor , even reaching Ionia and Aeolia , holding this vast territory for 100 years . Jordanes also mentions that they fought with Hercules , and in the Trojan War , and that a smaller contingent of them endured in the Caucasus Mountains until the time of Alexander . He mentions by name the Queens Menalippe , Hippolyta , and Penthesilea . Lists . There are several ( conflicting ) lists of names of Amazons . Quintus Smyrnaeus lists the attendant warriors of Penthesilea : " Clonie was there , Polemusa , Derinoe , Evandre , and Antandre , and Bremusa , Hippothoe , dark - eyed Harmothoe , Alcibie , Derimacheia , Antibrote , and Thermodosa glorying with the spear . " Diodorus Siculus enlists nine Amazons who challenged Heracles to single combat during his quest for Hippolyta ' s girdle and died against him one by one : Aella , Philippis , Prothoe , Eriboea , Celaeno , Eurybia , Phoebe , Deianeira , Asteria , Marpe , Tecmessa , Alcippe . After Alcippe ' s death , a group attack followed . Another list of Amazons ' names is found in Hyginus ' " Fabulae " . Along with Hippolyta , Otrera , Antiope and Penthesilea , it attests the following names : Ocyale , Dioxippe , Iphinome , Xanthe , Hippothoe , Laomache , Glauce , Agave , Theseis , Clymene , Polydora . Yet another different set of names is found in Valerius Flaccus ' " Argonautica " : he mentions Euryale , Harpe , Lyce , Menippe and Thoe . Of these Lyce also appears in a fragment preserved in the " Latin Anthology " where she is said to have killed the hero Clonus of Moesia , son of Doryclus , with her javelin . John Tzetzes in " Posthomerica " enumerates the Amazons that fell at Troy : Hippothoe , Antianeira , Toxophone , Toxoanassa , Gortyessa , Iodoce , Pharetre , Andro , Ioxeia , Oïstrophe , Androdaïxa , Aspidocharme , Enchesimargos , Cnemis , Thorece , Chalcaor , Eurylophe , Hecate , Anchimache , Andromache the queen . Concerning Antianeira and Andromache , see below ; for almost all the other names on the list , this is a unique attestation . Stephanus of Byzantium provides an alternate list of the Amazons that fell against Heracles , describing them as " the most prominent " of their people : Tralla , Isocrateia , Thiba , Palla , Coea ( Koia ) , Coenia ( Koinia ) . Eustathius gives the same list minus the last two names . Both Stephanus and Eustathius write of these Amazons in connection with the placename Thibais , which they report to have been derived from Thiba ' s name . Other names of Amazons from various sources include : Hero cults . According to ancient sources , ( Plutarch Theseus , Pausanias ) , Amazon tombs could be found frequently throughout what was once known as the ancient Greek world . Some are found in Megara , Athens , Chaeronea , Chalcis , Thessaly at Skotousa , in Cynoscephalae , and statues of Amazons are all over Greece . At both Chalcis and Athens , Plutarch tells us that there was an Amazoneum or shrine of Amazons that implied the presence of both tombs and cult . On the day before the Thesea at Athens there were annual sacrifices to the Amazons . In historical times Greek maidens of Ephesus performed an annual circular dance with weapons and shields that had been established by Hippolyta and her Amazons . They had initially set up wooden statues of Artemis , a bretas , ( Pausanias , ( fl . c . 160 ) : Description of Greece , Book I : Attica ) . In art . In works of art , battles between Amazons and Greeks are placed on the same level as and often associated with battles of Greeks and centaur s . The belief in their existence , however , having been once accepted and introduced into the national poetry and art , it became necessary to surround them as far as possible with the appearance of natural beings . Amazons were therefore depicted in the manner of Scythian or Samaritan horsemen . Their occupation was hunting and war ; their arms the bow , spear , axe , a half shield , nearly in the shape of a crescent , called " pelta " , and in early art a helmet , the model before the Greek mind having apparently been the goddess Athena . In later art they approach the model of Artemis , wearing a thin dress , girt high for speed ; while on the later painted vases their dress is often peculiarly Persian – that is , close - fitting trousers and a high cap called the kidaris . They were usually on horseback but sometimes on foot . This depiction of Amazons demonstrates just how closely , in the Greeks in mind , the Amazons were linked to the Scythians . Their manner of dress has been noted to bear a striking similarity to the traditional dress of nomadic peoples from the Crimea to Mongolia . Amazons can also be identified in vase paintings by the fact that they are wearing one earring . The battle between Theseus and the Amazons ( " Amazonomachy " ) is a favourite subject on the friezes of temples ( e . g . the reliefs from the frieze of the temple of Apollo at Bassae , now in the British Museum ) , vases and sarcophagus reliefs ; at Athens it was represented on the shield of the statue of Athena Parthenos , on wall - paintings in the Theseum and in the " Stoa Poikile " . There were also three standard Amazon statue types . In historiography . Herodotus reported that the Sarmatians were descendants of Amazons and Scythians , and that their wives observed their ancient maternal customs , " frequently hunting on horseback with their husbands ; in war taking the field ; and wearing the very same dress as the men " . Moreover , said Herodotus , " No girl shall wed till she has killed a man in battle " . In the story related by Herodotus , a group of Amazons was blown across the Maeotian Lake ( the Sea of Azov ) into Scythia near the cliff region ( today ' s southeastern Crimea ) . After learning the Scythian language , they agreed to marry Scythian men , on the condition that they not be required to follow the customs of Scythian women . According to Herodotus , this band moved toward the northeast , settling beyond the Tanais ( Don ) river , and became the ancestors of the Sauromatians . According to Herodotus , the Sarmatians fought with the Scythians against Darius the Great in the 5th century BC . Hippocrates describes them as : " They have no right breasts . . . for while they are yet babies their mothers make red - hot a bronze instrument constructed for this very purpose and apply it to the right breast and cauterize it , so that its growth is arrested , and all its strength and bulk are diverted to the right shoulder and right arm . " Amazons came to play a role in Roman historiography . Caesar reminded the Senate of the conquest of large parts of Asia by Semiramis and the Amazons . Successful Amazon raids against Lycia and Cilicia contrasted with effective resistance by Lydian cavalry against the invaders ( Strabo 5 . 504 ; Nicholas Damascenus ) . Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus pays particularly detailed attention to the Amazons . The story of the Amazons as deriving from a Cappadocian colony of two Scythian princes Ylinos and Scolopetos is due to him . Pliny the Elder records some surprising facts pointing to the valley of the Terme River as possibly being their home : a mountain named for them ( the modern Mason Dagi ) , as well as a settlement Amazonium ; Herotodus ( VI . 86 ) first mentions their capital Themiscyra , which Pliny locates near the Terme . Philostratus places the Amazons in the Taurus Mountains . Ammianus places them east of Tanais , as neighbouring the Alans . Procopius places them in the Caucasus . Diodorus Siculus ( " Bibliotheca historica " chapter 49 ) derived the Amazons from Atlantis and located them in western Libya . He also relates the story of Hercules defeating the Amazons at Themiscyre . Although Strabo shows skepticism as to their historicity , the Amazons in general continue to be taken as historical throughout Late Antiquity . Several Church Fathers speak of the Amazons as of a real people . Solinus embraces the account of Pliny . Under Aurelianus , captured Gothic women were identified as Amazons ( Claudianus ) . The account of Justinus was influential , and was used as a source by Orosius who continued to be read during the European Middle Ages . Medieval authors thus continue the tradition of locating the Amazons in the North , Adam of Bremen placing them at the Baltic Sea and Paulus Diaconus in the heart of Germania . Medieval and Renaissance literature . Amazons continued to be discussed by authors of the European Renaissance , and with the Age of Exploration , they were located in ever more remote areas . In 1542 , Francisco de Orellana reached the Amazon River ( " Amazonas " in Spanish ) , naming it after a tribe of warlike women he claimed having encountered and fought there . Afterwards the whole basin and region of the Amazon ( " Amazonía " in Spanish ) were named after the river . Amazons also figure in the accounts of both Christopher Columbus and Walter Raleigh . Famous medieval traveller John Mandeville mentions them in his book : Medieval and Renaissance authors credit the Amazons with the invention of the battle - axe . This is probably related to the Sagaris , an axe - like weapon associated with both Amazons and Scythian tribes by Greek authors ( see also Thracian tomb of Aleksandrovo kurgan ) . Paulus Hector Mair expresses astonishment that such a " manly weapon " should have been invented by a " tribe of women " , but he accepts the attribution out of respect for his authority , Johannes Aventinus . Ariosto ' s " Orlando Furioso " contains a country of warrior women , ruled by Queen Orontea ; the epic describes an origin much like that in Greek myth , in that the women , abandoned by a band of warriors and unfaithful lovers , rallied together to form a nation from which men were severely reduced , to prevent them from regaining power . The Amazons and Queen Hippolyta are also referenced in Geoffrey Chaucer ' s " Canterbury Tales " in " The Knight ' s Tale " . Historical background . Classicist Peter Walcot wrote , " Wherever the Amazons are located by the Greeks , whether it is somewhere along the Black Sea in the distant north - east , or in Libya in the furthest south , it is always beyond the confines of . The Amazons exist outside the range of normal human experience . " Nevertheless , there are various proposals for a historical nucleus of the Amazons of Greek historiography , the most obvious candidates being historical Scythia and Sarmatia in line with the account by Herodotus , but some authors prefer a comparison to cultures of Asia Minor or even Minoan Crete . Archaeology . Scythians and Sarmatians . Speculation that the idea of Amazons contains a core of reality is based on archaeological findings from burials , pointing to the possibility that some Sarmatian women may have participated in battle . These findings have led scholars to suggest that the Amazonian legend in Greek mythology may have been " inspired by real warrior women " . Evidence of high - ranking warrior women comes from kurgans in southern Ukraine and Russia . David Anthony notes , " About 20 % of Scythian - Sarmatian " warrior graves " on the lower Don and lower Volga contained women dressed for battle similar to how men dress , a phenomenon that probably inspired the Greek tales about the Amazons . " Up to 25 % of military burials were of armed Sarmatian women usually including bows . Russian archaeologist Vera Kovalevskaya points out that when Scythian men were away fighting or hunting , nomadic women would have to be able to defend themselves , their animals and pasture - grounds competently . During the time that the Scythians advanced into Asia and achieved near - hegemony in the Near - East , there was a period of twenty - eight years when the men would have been away on campaigns for long periods . During this time the women would not only have had to defend themselves , but to reproduce and this could well be the origin of the idea that Amazons mated once a year with their neighbours , if Herodotus actually based his accounts on fact . Before modern archaeology uncovered some of the Scythian burials of warrior - maidens entombed under kurgans in the region of Altai Mountains and Sarmatia , Minoan Crete . When Minoan archeology was still in its infancy , nevertheless , a theory raised in an essay regarding the Amazons contributed by Lewis Richard Farnell and John Myres to Robert Ranulph Marett ' s " Anthropology and the Classics " ( 1908 ) , placed their possible origins in Minoan civilization , drawing attention to overlooked similarities between the two cultures . According to Myres , ( pp . 153 ff ) , the tradition interpreted in the light of evidence furnished by supposed Amazon cults seems to have been very similar and may have even originated in Minoan culture . Modern legacy . In Ukraine Katerina Tarnovska leads a group called the Asgarda which claims to be a new tribe of Amazons . Tarnovska believes that the Amazons are the direct ancestors of Ukrainian women , and she has created an all - female martial art for her group , based on another form of fighting called “ Fighting Hopak , ” but with a special emphasis on self - defense . French photographer Guillaume Herbaut lived with the Asgarda and photographed them in 2004 . As of 2009 , the group consists of 150 women . The city of Samsun in modern - day Turkey features a recently constructed " Amazon Village " museum , created to bring attention to the legacy of the Amazons and to generate both academic interest and popular tourism . An iconic statue of the museum is the prominent figure of a fierce female warrior , flanked by two buildings designed to look like lions . A festival is held every year in the Terme district of Samsun Province to celebrate the Amazons .