WILLIAM BUBELIS
Washington University in St. Louis
On CYPRUS’ southern coast (BA 72 C3), Amathus had long been a major settlement by Herodotus’ time. But its history remains obscure, and it does not appear among ten Cypriot kingdoms that acknowledged the authority of the neo‐Assyrian king Esarhaddon in a cuneiform prism of 673/2 BCE. Amathus was the only Cypriot kingdom to have remained loyal to the ACHAEMENIDS during the IONIAN REVOLT, and it successfully resisted the siege of ONESILUS of Salamis, the revolt’s Cypriot instigator (5.104–8, 114). Although extensive damage to both APHRODITE’s shrine and the royal palace visible in the material record is roughly contemporary with Onesilus’ SIEGE, this might have resulted from some other event unknown to us (pace Petit 2004).
Whereas Herodotos typically names the rulers of Cypriot CITIES involved in the Ionian Revolt, he cites the Amathusians collectively for their stance yet omits their ethnic affiliation (cf. 7.90), despite the city’s well‐known claim to AUTOCHTHONY and the (still undeciphered) Eteocypriot language that long persisted there. Further difficulty surrounds Herodotus’ tale (5.114–15) of the bees that built a hive in Onesilus’ decapitated head, which the Amathusians hung upon their gates prior to burying it and worshipping Onesilus as a protective hero, in accordance with an ORACLE. The tale reflects Greek religious practice but also betokens Near Eastern cultural motifs (e.g., Judges 14:8–20).
SEE ALSO: Ethnicity; Heroes and Hero Cult; Near Eastern History; Religion, Greek; Salamis (Cyprus)
REFERENCE
1 Petit, Thierry. 2004. “Herodotus and Amathus.” In The World of Herodotus, edited by Vassos Karageorghis and Ioannis Taifacos, 9–25. Nicosia: Foundation Anastasios G. Leventis.
FURTHER READING
1 Serghidou, Anastasia. 2007. “Cyprus and Onesilus: An Interlude of Freedom (5.104, 108–16).” In Reading Herodotus: A Study of the logoi in Book Five of Herodotus’ Histories, edited by Elizabeth Irwin and Emily Greenwood, 269–88. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
AMAZONS (Ἀμαζόνες/Ἀμαζονίδες, αἱ)
NIKI KARAPANAGIOTI
Oxford High School GDST
In Greek mythology, the Amazons were a tribe of women warriors. Herodotus dwells on them for several chapters (4.110–16) when the SAUROMATIANS—whose women maintain an Amazonian way of life—enter his narrative as neighbors of the SCYTHIANS. The Amazons fought the Greeks at the THERMODON RIVER in CAPPADOCIA. The Greeks captured them alive and put them on board ship, where the Amazons massacred the crew and escaped (4.110.1). Pausanias refers to the battle at Thermodon, as Herodotus does, but reports that the women subsequently tried to invade Attica and were defeated (Paus. 1.2; see also Hellanicus BNJ 4 F166; Herodorus BNJ 31 F25a; Diod. Sic. 4.28 and Plut. Thes. 26–28). Herodotus reveals awareness of this legend: before the battle of PLATAEA, the Athenians, speaking of their glorious past and previous military records, cite their triumph over the Amazons in Attica (9.27.4). Herodotus’ version in Book 4 is one of the very few Greek accounts where the Amazons survive a confrontation with the Greeks (Hazewindus 2004, 211). PINDAR, for example, mentions that Bellerophon, HERACLES, TELAMON, Iolaus, and THESEUS were victorious in all their encounters against the Amazons (Pind. Ol. 8.46–48, 13.87–131; Nem. 3.34–39; F172 S‐M); centuries later, Quintus Smyrnaeus refers to the death of Penthesileia, the Amazonian queen, by the hand of Achilles (1.18–19, 718–21).
In the Histories, after massacring the Greeks, the Amazons invade SCYTHIA and mate with Scythian young men, with whom they create the nation of the Sauromatians (4.110.2–116.1). Sauromatian women keep the Amazonian warrior features: they go HUNTING together with their husbands or alone, they go to war, and none of them is married until she has killed at least one enemy; finally, they wear the same DRESS as men (4.116–17). However, Herodotus gives no sign that among the Sauromatians women have more authority than men or that men fear women (Dewald 1981, 102–3; Hazewindus 2004, 213–14). On the contrary, it is clearly mentioned (4.119.1) that the Sauromatians have a king (contrast Diod. Sic. 3.52–53., Ps.‐Scylax 70, and Ephorus BNJ 70 F160 where the nation of the Sauromatians is mentioned as gynaikokratoumenon, “ruled by women”). Moreover, contrary to the Hippocratic corpus and other sources, Herodotus does not refer to monstrous Amazonian and Sauromatian customs, such as the cauterization of the women’s breast so that they can use their weapons better or the dislocation of the joints of the male CHILDREN at birth in order to make them lame, to prevent the males from conspiring against the females (Hippoc. Aer. 17.1–18, Art. 53.1–10; Hellanicus BNJ 4 F107 and Diod. Sic. 2.45).
SEE ALSO: Athens; Ethnography; Gender; Medical Writers; Myth; Oeorpata; Sex; Tanais; Women in the Histories
REFERENCES
1 Dewald, Carolyn. 1981. “Women and Culture in Herodotus’ Histories.” Women’s Studies 8.1/2: 93–127. Reprinted in ORCS Vol. 2, 151–79 (lightly revised).
2 Hazewindus, Minke W. 2004. When Women Interfere: Studies in the Role of Women in Herodotus' Histories. Amsterdam: Gieben.
FURTHER READING
1 duBois, Page. 1999. Centaurs and Amazons: Women and the Pre‐history of the Great Chain of Being. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
2 Kleinbaum, Abby Wettan. 1983. The War Against the Amazons. New York: New Press.
3 Tyrrell, William Blake. 1984. Amazons: A Study in Athenian Mythmaking. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.
AMBRACIA (Ἀμβρακία/Ἀμπρακία, ἡ)
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
A POLIS in northwest Greece (modern Arta), controlling an area north of the gulf to which it gave its name (BA 54 C3). Ambracia was founded by CORINTH in the seventh century BCE (Strabo 10.2.8/C452), and the population were DORIANS, as Herodotus notes (8.45). The Ambraciots (Herodotus uses only the city‐ethnic, Ἀμπρακιῶται) sent seven ships to join the Greek fleet at SALAMIS in 480 BCE; Herodotus comments that they and the LEUCADIANS came from farthest away, other than a single ship from CROTON in ITALY (8.45, 47). The following summer, five hundred Ambraciot HOPLITES fought with the Greeks at PLATAEA, where they lined up opposite the SACAE (9.28.5, 31.4).
SEE ALSO: Colonization; Ethnicity; Hellenic League; Ionian Gulf
FURTHER READING
1 IACP no. 113 (354–56).
2 Tsouvara‐Souli, Chryseis. 1992. Αμβρακία. Arta: Studies on Arta 1.
AMEINIAS (Ἀμεινίης, ὁ)
ANGUS BOWIE
Queen’s College, Oxford
Ameinias,
