Penthesilea

Ladies, Gentlemen, and everyone in between: it’s our pleasure to introduce you to the terrifying Amazonian queen, the woman famed for coming to the Trojan’s rescue during the Greek’s famous invasion of the Late Bronze Age … please give a round of applause for Penthesilea!

For those of you who don’t know, we should probably begin by explaining what in the world the Amazons were before diving into the character of Penthesilea. Simply put, the Amazonian tribe was a race of badass female warriors. In Greek mythology, the Amazons were daughters of Ares (the god of war) and a fearsome force to be reckoned with. These ladies typically only come out into the world when they needed to show men who really ran things. In fact, every single mythological man was petrified of the Amazons. Every single one of them. There is not one instance of a man downplaying the power the Amazons had in myth, nor do we have episodes of men looking down on the Amazons because they were women. Absolutely not! These women were tough as nails, and no man was going to risk being used as an example by them to show everyone else what would happen to those who attempted to reprimand them.

Unfortunately for modern scholars, the main text where the Amazons are celebrated is lost to us. We know the the text was called The Aethiopis on account of many fragments referencing it, but the text itself no longer survives. This is genuinely one of the most frustrating things for us academics, mainly because this was the book where we get to see exactly what the Amazons were made of in battle. Such are the problems with studying antiquity — most of the cool shiz is no more.

Now, the Amazon warriors were actually around for quite a long time. Penthesilea wasn’t the first queen of the Amazons, she’s just our most famous queen. Before Penthesilea ruled her sister, Hippolyte, was queen — although according to some mythology, Penthesilea supposedly killed her. Whether this was an accident or on purpose we don’t actually know, given the surviving texts differ in their narratives. We’d like to think that if only the bloody Aethiopis had made it to the present day, there may have been a flashback scene that explained it all! But alas, we can’t sit here and speculate as we’ll never know. Apollodorus does suggest in his Library of Greek Mythology that the murder was an accident (Epitome 5.2), with the commentary note by Robin Hard stating Theseus could have been the true murderer of Hippolyte. Regardless, one way or another, Hippolyte dies, and therefore Penthesilea rules over the Amazons in her place.

However, considering our new queen (possibly) murdered the previous one, Penthesilea needs to have a purification as an apology for her wrong doing. Remember: this was a society built on redemption from the gods, and if one was to attempt to skirt around this unwritten law … well let’s just say that never went well. According to a note in Ovid’s Heroides, Harold Isabell states that in order for Penthesilea to get this purification, she has to goe to the king of Troy, our good old friend Priam. Priam agrees to perform this spiritual cleansing, but only if Penthesilea will promise to fight on his side with the Amazons if he were to ever need it. No monetary payment required, just her word. Penthesilea agrees, not thinking she’ll ever need to show up for Priam, gets purified, and goes on her way.

Fast forward to the Trojan War, Penthesilea’s time to shine comes just after the events of The Iliad. Priam realises his city is falling at the hands of the Greek army and is urgent for help. Who does our king send a messenger to? Absolutely, you guessed it: the Amazons. Once upon a time, the lost text The Aethiopis would have picked up right here after The Iliad ends, therefore encompassing all the famous endings we know — the Trojan horse, Achilles death, and the fall of Troy itself. It’s also in this book that we would have gotten an account of the Amazon invasion, and if the fragments are anything to go by, it was EPIC.

Penthesilea was noted in the majority of mythology as being a force to be reckoned with on the battle field. Ovid writes in his letter from Cydippe To Acontius that Penthesilea’s weapon of choice was an axe in accompaniment to her shield. More specifically in the Roman poet’s Metamorphoses, Ovid details in Book 12 that the Amazonian queen had a “double axe”. The Amazons are described in surrounding mythology as tearing apart many Greek soldiers throughout the last part of the Trojan war, until Achilles decides he has had enough of the slaughter. Achilles is the only man to face Penthesilea in battle, and more importantly, Achilles is noted as being the only man to get close enough to strike at the Amazonian queen. It’s this great Greek hero who ends up slaying Penthesilea on the plains of Troy.

According to some ancient source material, Achilles fell in love with Penthesilea at some point during the Amazon’s attack at Troy. Unfortunately for us classicists, none of these mythologies tend to match up to one linear narrative. Some authors claim that Achilles fell in love with Penthesilea as he killed her and even wept when he had performed the act — an extremely vulnerable moment that causes Thersites (the ugliest man in Troy, according to Homer) to make fun of Achilles in front of the army. Unsurprisingly, Thersites’ taunts do not bode well with the son of Peleus, and Achilles gets so mad that he kills Thersites on the spot. Other authors suggest that Achilles and Penthesilea had a much longer love story which started before the Trojan War and even have a son together by the name of Caistus. If you’d like to read all of these differing storylines side by side, definitely check out Who’s Who in Classical Mythology by Michael Grant and John Hazel. I have no doubt it’s easier to read for our non-classics audience than attempting to find all the individual sources!

All in all, Penthesilea is the tough ass queen of a tribe of warrior women. She was a daughter of war god Ares, feared by all men, and respected by her female army. This boss should be known to every single lover of mythology, and now it’s your job to go and spread the knowledge about her!

For more information on Penthesilea, you can check out the following sources:
Ovid’s Metamorphoses (we have this version)
Ovid’s Heroides
Apollodorus The Library of Greek Mythology
Michael Grant and John Hazel’s Who’s Who In Classical Mythology