Wounded Amazon

The Amazons were the race of warrior women who engaged the Greeks in battle a number of times. They came to the aid of King Priam in the Trojan War, but before that there was the episode of Herakles fighting them to obtain the girdle of their queen Hippolyte, which Carpenter describes. Theseus fought the Amazons after they invaded Attica. He then abducted the Amazon queen Antiope and married her. Carpenter tells of some of the places where the Athenians battle with the Amazons was depicted including the shield of the Athena Parthenos. The Amazons were to have lived somewhere in the far north near the Black Sea and though the Greek attitude toward them is generally one of contempt and derision (as well as victorious over them in battle), there were several cities which had cults to the Amazons in historical times such as Delphi and Athens. The Amazons and the Centaurs were both considered barbarians, unlike the civilized Greeks, and are thematically linked as representing the Persians in several places in representation like the Parthenon, the Temple of Apollo at Bassae and the paintings of the Theseion mentioned above. Here we see a rather sympathetic and sensitive depiction of an Amazon that has been wounded. This work here is from the Met in New York and is believed to be a Roman copy of an original bronze. At some point the Amazons began to be depicted much like Artemis, in a short dress, pulled up for freedom of movement. Look up this statue on the Met's website and read the description there.

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