Olivia Saunders, Classics undergraduate at Durham University, explores the gender politics within Herodotus’ account of the Amazons and the Scythians.
The Amazons, legendary warrior women who fight the male heroes of Greek mythology as equals, were a source of fascination to the ancient Greeks, and they remain an intriguing cultural touchstone. In modern culture, the most famous Amazon is, of course, Wonder Woman – even in the DC Universe, an Amazon is the most quintessential female warrior and role model for young girls. The Amazons have long been thought to be mythical rather than historical, and they are certainly mythologised, but archaeological evidence does indicate that there were cultures of female warriors across the Eurasian steppes.
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One ‘historical’ tale of the Amazons can be found in Herodotus’ Histories, within his larger ethnographical digression about the Scythians in Book IV. The links that Herodotus draws between the Amazons and the Sauromatae (thought to be the people later known as the Sarmatians) appear to link myth and history. The story Herodotus tells in 4.110-117 is of the origin of the Sauromatae, born of Amazons and a group of young Scythian men. Here we see two groups, normally separated by culture and gender, combine into one, and the language Herodotus uses to describe these independent warrior women and how they join with these Scythian men to create a new society is very interesting to look at.
Firstly, we must consider: did these events, regardless of how convincingly Herodotus tells them, actually happen? Even in antiquity, Herodotus was called the ‘Father of Lies’ as well as the ‘Father of History’ and accused of fabrication. In this case, evidence has been found for other stories he tells about the Scythians, and his description of his research method is asking questions to local people. This then raises the question of how reliable his sources, perhaps Scythian Greeks, would be, especially on the ancient origins of a different tribe. This was likely an existing aetiology of the Sauromatae and represented some contemporary beliefs, but that reveals little about the historical reality of the story.
For François Hartog (in The Mirror of Herodotus), Herodotus uses the Scythians to hold up a mirror to the Greeks. Perhaps his description of the origins of the Sauromatae, and warrior women, is an image of ‘otherness’ to help define Greek culture, which is why he allows women to be warriors but looks at them through an undeniably Greek eye. Archaeological evidence, however, seems to corroborate Herodotus again here. Tombs of warrior women have been found across the Eurasian steppes, including around the Black Sea area and in the area between the Don river and the Caspian Sea, where Herodotus locates the Sauromatae, and the people known later as the Sarmatians (generally agreed to be Herodotus’ Sauromatae) are often linked with the Amazons.
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Secondly, we must consider Herodotus’ description of the Amazons. He makes it clear that the Amazons are capable warriors and dangerous to men, as they immediately kill their male captors (even though it leaves them unable to sail away). Their story not only begins with fighting and killing Greek men, but Herodotus says that the Scythian name for the Amazons is ‘Oiorpata’, which he translates as ‘men-killers’. Scholars like How and Wells (A Commentary On Herodotus) and Hazewindus (When Women Interfere: Studies in the Role of Women in Herodotus’ Histories) agree that ‘oiorpata’ should be translated as ‘rulers of men’ rather than ‘killers of men’. As an ethnographer, the names of different tribes are significant to Herodotus, and whether by mistake or design, he clearly gives the Amazons an epithet that defines them as dangerous and at war with men.
On the surface, this episode shows a remarkably equal and reciprocal relationship between the Amazons and the young Scythian men. They seem to take turns in taking initiative; the men are the first to take action in camping near to the women and slowly moving closer to them, but they are in fact instructed to do so, following the lead of the Amazon women and copying their way of life. A Scythian man, again, is the first to approach an Amazon woman for sex, but then she, through gestures, arranges for another couple to meet, and so both groups are active and take initiative to build relationships with each other. By the time the Scythian and Amazon camps join together, Herodotus does not specify either group as the initiators, making the decision seem unanimous and also emphasising the union of the two, although he continues to treat them as distinct groups after this point.
After they have united, Herodotus specifies that the women learn the Scythian language, but the men are unable to learn theirs – a modern feminist reader might interpret this as portraying the women as more intelligent than the men, or see it as an ancient example of weaponised incompetence. Once it is time to make decisions about their future life together, the Scythian men appear to retake the lead, suggesting that the Amazons return to their tribe with them, as their wives. The Amazons, however, refuse this and make the alternate suggestion that the men obtain their inheritance and continue to live with the Amazons separately from the Scythians. This pair of speeches creates an impression of discussion amongst equals, and after this point, Herodotus gives the Amazons a speech suggesting that they move location, to which the Scythian men agree. The speeches, of both the men and the women, tend to use subjunctives not commands – i.e. ‘let us’ rather than ‘you must’ – creating an impression of unity with neither dominating.
However, the language Herodotus uses about the Amazons at some points is also objectifying in a way that seems to reveal his perspective as a Greek man. The culture he comes from is patriarchal, and at a few places in the text the ways he phrases things seems to emphasise or presuppose the submission of women. When Herodotus first writes about a Scythian approaching an Amazon for sex, ‘καὶ ἡ Ἀμαζὼν οὐκ ἀπωθέετο ἀλλὰ περιεῖδε χρήσασθαι’, although he grants her a level of agency, she seems to be treated like an object – at first, she only has negative agency and ‘did not oppose him’, and then ‘allowed him’ to have sex with her. Beyond the passivity of this language, certainly not implying enthusiastic consent, the verb Herodotus uses for the act itself is χρήσασθαι, the primary meaning of which is ‘to use’. If we look at other meanings of χράομαι, we can get three potential translations: ‘allowed him to use her’, ‘allowed him to make her subject to him’, and ‘allowed him to be intimate with her’. This is a very objectifying verb which suggests violence or victimisation on some level. It might suggest that the Scythian had violent intentions or was overtly violent towards the Amazon – ‘allowing him’ does not necessarily imply consent. It is possible that this was simply Herodotus’ perspective on sex – in the society in which he lived, the man had agency in sex and the woman’s consent was not relevant. But it seems unlikely that an Amazon would be subject to a man in any way – perhaps this is simply a cultural difference.
However, the next verb Herodotus chooses to use about intercourse between the Scythians and the Amazons is ἐκτιλώσαντο, saying ‘αὐτοὶ ἐκτιλώσαντο τὰς λοιπὰς τῶν Ἀμαζόνων’. The verb κτιλόω is not ambiguous like χράομαι, and explicitly means ‘to tame’, like a wild animal. Powell (A Lexicon to Herodotus) has suggested that it might mean ‘to marry’ in this context, but this seems unlikely, and if it is the case again shows Herodotus’ patriarchal perspective on marriage and heterosexual relationships. The use of these verbs definitely feels like Herodotus is trying to create a particular view of the Amazons as more submissive in their relationships with the Scythians. The question therefore is whether this is his own patriarchal perspective, or a deliberate irony, with a touch of humour, that he subverts.
When the camps merge, Herodotus phrases the Scythians and Amazons coupling up as ‘γυναῖκα ἔχων ἕκαστος ταύτην τῇ τὸ πρῶτον συνεμίχθη’, ‘each of them having as a wife the woman with whom he had had intercourse before’. The verb ἔχων, ‘have’, in this context does not necessarily mean that the Amazons are being depicted as belonging to the Scythians in an objectifying way; it can be equally used for ‘have as wife’ and ‘have as husband’. In addition to this, unlike his previous choices, the verb Herodotus chooses for intercourse here, συνεμίχθη, means mixing together or sexual intercourse with no connotations of dominance or objectification. However, he still chooses to make the Scythians the subject and the Amazons the object of both verbs – it seems likely that this is a result of his perspective as a Greek man.
In the first speech that the Amazons make, they emphasise the differences between themselves and the Scythian women. However, the way that Herodotus makes them describe these differences clearly reveals his voice and narration, since they use the phrase ‘women’s work’ twice, once to say they ‘have not learnt’ it and again to say that this is what Scythian women ‘occupy themselves with in the wagons’. They describe their own activities by the weapons they use; this combination emphasises their masculinity and distances them from ‘normal women’. It is very clear that, in the Amazons’ culture, their activities are what they would deem ‘women’s work’, and so they would not use this phrase to describe its opposite; this phrase therefore suggests Herodotus inserting his own perspective into another culture.
So, the language which Herodotus uses seems to paint the Scythians as the more active party in this courtship, but in the story he tells the Amazons make more of the decisions. The question that we must ask is whether the language he uses is simply a reflection of his own culture, or whether this is a deliberate irony. Although this tale is clearly the product of Herodotus’ role as storyteller and his narrative perspective, it seems to be an at least semi-historical account of the Amazons, and gives us a clue as to the way in which a culture of warrior women might interact with other cultures, both in love and in war.
If you’d like to explore more about the Amazons, check out these resources.
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