Amazons, << AM uh zonz, >> were a tribe of warrior women in Greek mythology. To the male-centered Greeks of the 400’s B.C., the Amazons symbolized all that was barbaric and non-Greek. The Greeks believed that the Amazons inhabited a remote region of Asia Minor and maintained their female culture by mating periodically with men of neighboring tribes. The women sent their sons back to the tribes of their fathers, or enslaved them, rearing only the girls.
The name Amazon is usually taken to mean breastless. The women, according to some sources, seared off the right breast of each daughter so she could shoot the bow and arrow more easily.
Many references to Amazons appear in ancient Greek literature. For example, the Amazon queen Penthesileia aided the Trojans against the Greeks in the Trojan War. After killing many Greeks, she was killed by the Greek warrior Achilles.
Some scholars believe that the concept of a race of women warriors originated when the Greeks fought the Scythians, a people who lived north of the Black Sea. Scythian women sometimes fought alongside the men and had masculine habits. The Greek historian Herodotus believed the Sarmatians, who replaced the Scythians, were the product of a planned union of the Amazons and the Scythians.
See also Scythians.
