(Continued from Herakles' Eighth Labour) Herakles' Ninth Labour - the Girdle of Hippolyte At the time of our story, the Amazons had three main cities, which were ruled by three queens; Hippolyte, Antiope and Melanippe. Hippolyte possessed a golden girdle given to the very first Amazon queen by Ares, who fathered the Amazon race on the Naiad Harmonia. Eurystheus desired this golden girdle for his daughter, Admete, so he decreed that Herakles should obtain it. Herakles therefore set sail from Eventually they got to the mouth of the river Thermidon in the Black Sea and cast anchor in the So it looks as though Herakles is going to complete the Labour with ease, this time - think again! Hera had not been idle while Herakles and his companions had been making their way to Thermidon. She had dressed herself in Amazon costume and gone about the Amazon lands with the story that these Achaean strangers planned to abduct Hippolyte and commit who knows what other outrages! The warrior-women were always ready to believe tales of perfidy where men were concerned, so mounted their horses and charged the harbour where the ship lay. All at once Herakles and his crew found themselves under sustained and deadly attack! His first thought was that Hippolyte had been pretending to like him, to take him off-guard, so he killed her as she stood, then taking her axe he jumped into the melee that had formed in the shallows by the ship and laid about him. After a great slaughter the Amazons were finally put to flight. The journey back to  |
 Amazons have been thought of for centuries as purely mythical beings, but evidence has now been found of tribes of female warriors around the Black Sea. Some stories place the Amazons next to another tribe, the Gargarensians, at the foot of the Caucasian mountains. Every spring the young Amazon women and young Gargarensian men would get together and enjoy two months of promiscuous intercourse. As soon as she found herself pregnant, the Amazon would return home. The girl-children became Amazons and the boys (once weaned) were sent to the Gargarensians. There is a story that the Amazon queen Minythia set out from her Albanian court to meet Alexander the Great in Hyrcania, and spent thirteen days with him. She hoped to have a child by him, but unfortunately died soon afterwards. The 'classical' Amazons can be imagined as a society made up of women - perhaps a few men for servants - who would be worshippers of Artemis, the moon-goddess. As Artemis was eternally virginal, the Amazons would also place great store by virginity, probably their priestesses would have to be chaste, much like the Vestal Virgins of the later Roman culture. Principal weapons were the bow (shaped like the sickle moon), the labrys, or double-headed axe (here the curve of the axe-blades represented the moon in waxing and waning phases), and a sickle-shaped knife (the moon again). Their shields were traditionally supposed to be shaped like a half-moon. Prowess in battle would be an absolute necessity - the patriarchal cultures which were developing at this time would not easily accept a neighbouring society where women were dominant. |
