The Early Amazons: Modern and Ancient Perspectives on a Persistent Myth

518 Pages·1995·37.96 MB·English

by  Josine H. Blok

THE EARLY AMAZONS
RELIGIONS IN
THE GRAECO-ROMAN WORLD
FORMERLY
ETUDES PREUMINAIRES
AUX REUGIONS ORIENTALES
DANS L'EMPIRE ROMAIN
EDITORS
R. VAN DEN BROEK H.J.W. DRijVERS
H.S. VERSNEL
VOLUME 120
THE EARLY AMAZONS
Modem and Ancient Perspectives on a Persistent Myth
BY
JOSINE H. BLOK
EJ.BRILL
LEIDEN · NEW YORK · KOLN
1995
1his series &ligWns in the Graeco-Roman World presents a forum for studies in the socilll and cultural
.fonction qf religWns in the Greek and the Roman world, dealing with pagan religWns both in their own
right and in their interaction with and influence on Christiani!J and Judaism during a lmtfoy period qf
.fondo.mental change. Special attention will be given to the religious history qf regions and cities which illu
strate the practical workings qf these processes.
Enquiries regarding the submission qf works for publication in the series 711'9' be directed to Prqfessor
H.]. W. Drijvers, Facul~ qf utters, Universi!J qf Groningen, 97 12 EK Groningen, The Netherltmds.
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Com
mittee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.
Published with financial support from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific
Research (N.W.O.).
Translated from the Dutch by Peter Mason.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Blok, Josine.
The early amazons : modern and ancient perspectives on a
persistent myth I by Josine H. Blok
p. em. - (Religions in the Graeco-Roman world ; v. 120)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 9004100776 (cloth :acid-free paper)
1. Amazons. I. Tide. II. Series.
BL820.A6B5 7 1994
398'.352-dc20 94-36310
CIP
Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaumalune
Blok, josine H.:
The early Amazons : modern and ancient perspectives on a
persistent myth I by Josine H. Blok. - Leiden ; New York ;
Ko1n : Brill, 1994
(Religions in the Graeco-Roman world; Vol. 120)
ISBN 9D--04-10077-6
NE:GT
ISSN 0927-7633
ISBN 90 04 10077 6
© CoJryright 1995 by EJ. Brill, I.eidm., The Netherltmds
All rights reserved. No part qf this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocofrying, recording or otherwise, without prior written
permission .from the publisher.
Authorization to photocofry items for internal or personal
use is granted by EJ. Brill provided that
the appropriate fees are paid direct[, to The Cofryright
Ckarance Center, 2 2 2 Rosewood Drive, Suite 91 0
Danvers MA 09123, USA.
Fees are subject to change.
PRINTED IN TiiE NETiiERLANDS
CONTENTS
Preface ................................................................................................ vii
Acknowledgements ............................................................................ xv
Translator's note ............................................................................. xvii
List of illustrations .......................................................................... xix
Introduction ......................................................................................... 1
I. Interpretations of the Amazon myth in the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries ..................................... 21
Linguistic archaeology: etymology as the key to
the mythical core ............................................................... 21
Historical interpretations: Creuzer and Muller ............. 37
The background: the Amazons and cultural
history in the early nineteenth century ......................... 63
Historical interpretations: Kliigmann .............................. 75
Ethnographic interpretations of the Amazon
myth, ancient and modern ............................................... 83
From "myth and ritual" to structuralism .................... 104
Greeks and Others ........................................................... 126
II. The Homeric formula ......................................................... 145
Archaic Amazons: the literary record .......................... 145
The epic formula: [Amazones antianeirai] .................. 155
The meanings of [a ntianeirai] ....................................... 169
The formula and the problem of epic chronology ... 185
III. Penthesileia ............................................................................ 195
The words of Thersites ................................................... 195
The creation of Penthesileia .......................................... 210
Penthesileia in the archaeological record .................... 223
The heroic pattern ........................................................... 239
Ares and Thrake .............................................................. 259
Ambiguous Amazons ........................................................ 276
VI CONTENTS
IV. Priamos and Bellerophontes ............................................... 289
The historical interpretation ........................................... 289
Priamos ............................................................................... 293
The deeds of Bellerophontes .......................................... 303
The types of Bellerophontes .......................................... 322
Bellerophontes' Amazonomachy ..................................... 333
V. Herakles and the sixth-century development of
the Amazon motif ................................................................ 349
The archaic material: methodological
considerations .................................................................... 349
The earliest Amazons: problems of interpretation ..... 356
Amazons in the visual material from the
sixth century ...................................................................... 379
Amazonomachies ............................................................... 384
The identity of the Amazons ........................................ 394
The world of the Amazons .......................................... .407
Conclusions ...................................................................................... 431
Bibliography .................................................................................... 443
Index ................................................................................................ 461
Plates ................................................................................................ 475
PREFACE
The aim of this study is twofold. In the first part I want to
show that the Amazons are a myth. To some readers this claim
will hardly come as a surprise. The recent interest in the crea
tion of alterity and the detailed investigation of how Greek civiliza
tion shaped its alternatives in mythical representations have furthered
an awareness of the Amazons as an emblem of Otherness in its
many guises. Yet for many years, even centuries, the opposite
view dominated the assessment of the ancient Amazon tales.
This people of female warriors was generally held to have been
rooted in reality, as the (once) living alternative to Western practices
and values. Even if the explanations attached to the Amazons
have been richly divergent in kind and aim, the assumption that
they were or at least had been no figment of the imagination
determined the discourse on these incredible women.
Classical scholarship from the late eighteenth century onwards
partook in this idea. Either scholars offered explanations of their
own, shaping what they held to be the core of Amazonian re
ality out of their professional views on mythical representation;
or they abstained from any interpretation, shunning a theme
that had been claimed by non-professionals as proof for pro
cesses in the socio-cultural history of mankind. In both ways
they sustained the basic assumption about the Amazons, either
trying to reconcile the irreconcilable or leaving this topic to rest
as a skeleton in the closet of classical studies. The embarrass
ment resulting from these attitudes may explain why the Amazon
myth has suffered a relative neglect by classical scholarship, compared
to its profusion throughout Greek civilization.
In the process of coming to terms with the scholarly tradition
on my subject, I saw that the alleged reality of the Amazons
haunted even the most distinguished authors. This appeared to
be not only the case in the early scholarship on the Amazons.
Indeed, when starting this project in the late 1970s, I found
Vlll PREFACE
that the theme could still embarrass a professional audience.
Discussing the feasible ways to explain some problems in my
research, the majority of my colleagues raised suggestions of the
reality-kind (matriarchal residues? fertility-rites? initiation?), or
made no suggestions at all. So even if in the meantime a shift
has been gradually taking place, I think it worthwhile to offer
an analysis of the discourse on the Amazons in classical scholar
ship. In brief, I want to show what obstacles have prevented
professional critics from perceiving the Amazons as mythical in
the very sense of the word. Moreover, the relative neglect con
cerns the archaic material in particular. The early Amazons
probably seemed too close to the recesses of time, where visions
of matriarchy or dim contours of foreign peoples resembling an
Amazon society might seduce scholars away from the clarity of
professional debate. Recendy, the shift towards an interpretation
of the Amazons as a mythical people has setded on the classical
era, where the framework of alterity can best be revealed. This
perspective is highly valuable, as it illuminates the development
of ancient Greek Amazonology and its uses in political life. Yet
it can shed hardly any light on the shape of the Amazons in
early Greek culture, when they entered the stage of heroic myth.
My investigation, then, concerns the early Amazons of classical
scholarship and some recent views of the development of the
Amazon myth. In this way I hope to clear the ground for a
new approach to the early Amazons of ancient Greece.
After situating the Amazons more firmly in the realm of
mythology, the second aim of the present study is to show how
the myth developed in archaic Greece. Some questions may
seem old ones, since the claim of the first part does not resolve
the problem of how this myth may have emerged. Yet this
question will be put and answered in a different way, and new
questions will steer the analysis of the Amazon myth in another
direction. As a myth, it consists of stories, narratives handed
down in oral tradition, preserved in writing and in visual repre
sentations. The interconnection between both types of expression
will be explored, but at the same time each has a dialectic of
its own. Words and pictures create meaning in different ways,
yet the understanding of the one was most likely informed by
familiarity with the other.
The narrative aspect is analyzed in the framework of oral
PREFACE lX
traditions. Recent research in this field has convinced me that
the role of the Amazons in myth is the kind of motif operating
within pre-existing, large-scale structures of oral story-telling. This
approach makes it necessary to make a double move. The basic
features of the Amazon motif should be disentangled from the
larger structures in which it is incorporated. To catch the bare
words which first brought the Amazons to life, as far as the
extant sources allow us to do so, appears to be the most reliable
way to start. An ensuing confrontation of the motif with its
contexts makes it possible to understand both its formal aspects
and its meaning. In this way we move from the basic words to
larger themes and tales.
Homeric epic appears to be the earliest strand of story-telling
in which the Amazons can be found. In the context of heroic
values the role of the Amazons is as ambiguous as it is reveal
ing. Both on the level of words and on the level of narrative
structures, the Amazons are shown to embody an othernes~ to
the set values of masculinity and femininity in epic-heroic life.
As such they could be imbued later on with the meaning of
ethnographic alterity. The story of Achilles and Penthesileia draws
on the generic Amazon motif and brings its inherent conflicts to
the fore. Heroic tales in the tradition of Troy then seem the
most likely candidate for the emergence of the Amazon motif.
To reach beyond that stratum and pursue an origin behind
Homeric epic is impossible. The complicated relationship between
the epic and historical reality impedes any solid conclusion about
dates and backgrounds. Nevertheless, some ideas about the stage
of origin within epic itself and about the impulses leading to the
spreading of the motif are offered in the course of my argument.
Several observations can be made on the application of a
motif. Apparently, the story-tellers wanted to apply it; they might
have used a different motif. But they could only use a different
motif if the alternative entailed the same message. In other words,
formally the Amazon motif operates like all other motifs: as one
of the many elements with which a tale is to be constructed.
On the level of meaning, however, it has no obvious alternative.
The Amazons bring an aspect to the heroic tale that other
motifs do not. The (heroic) tale with the (Amazon) motif taken
as a whole acquires its meaning from the interaction of its con
stitutive elements. The specific quality as female heroes which