Atalanta
How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you?(1)
For most of my lifetime, Amazons have suffered a demotion worse than myth: classicists traditionally labeled them a figment of Greek imagination. In my adult years, archaeologists like Adrienne Mayor have proven their existence. We have found their burial sites, over a thousand tombs excavated across the Eurasian steppes from Bulgaria to Mongolia.(2) How do we know these are Amazon graves? In the 1990’s, DNA analysis identified as female the bones of ancient Scythian and Sarmatian warrior graves in Southern Russia and the Ukraine. Ancient Greeks portrayed Amazons more than any other subject in their art, and the recently unearthed graves reveal that the Greeks were keen observers of an actual culture. Greek depictions of the Amazons match the clothing and objects of the Amazons found in these graves.(3)
Growing up, the only place to find Amazons was in myth and I read every reference I could get my hands on, though much of it bothered me. I was certain that most every story told of Amazons was a lie, and the new scholarship confirms my intuitions. Amazons did not chop off their breasts,(4) nor did they abandon their boy children.(5) Amazons did not govern as an oppressive matriarchy, like an opposite to brutal patriarchy. They practiced partnership culture, loved their menfolk and whenever Greeks found themselves in battle with Amazons, they often fell in love with them.(6) Many Greek men abandoned their culture for the love of the Amazon way of life.
Following Theseus’ abduction of Antiope, the Amazons almost defeated ancient Greece at Athens.(7) Led by Queen Orithyia, they took northern Greece and the Acropolis before Greek forces could rebuff them. Ancient Greeks famously named foreigners for their attributes, like lice-eater. The Greek name Amazon means equal of men.(8) Having domesticated their own females, the wild female of the Amazon world compelled the Greek mind, men and women alike. Brides were gifted images of Amazons on perfume bottles and trinkets for their marriage chambers. The Greeks were obsessed with Amazons and, in particular, Atalanta. We find her on many Black and Red figure vases. Because of that, her story survives today, documented in Adrienne Mayor’s The Amazons: Lives & Legends of Warrior Women Across the Ancient World. This song about Atalanta sprung directly out of my reading her story, as recounted by Mayor.
(Featuring images of Greek Black & Red-figure pottery, an image or two of Xena for good measure and a musing on where a modern-day Amazon might take refuge. Hint: the circus).
Atalanta Running
Everyone is watching Atalanta run.
No one can catch her, not even one-
but they try.
Atalanta’s running with wings on her feet.
When Atalanta’s running, no one can beat her-
she flies, she flies.
King Iasos left her to die –
his infant daughter on the mountainside,
but she thrived, she thrived.
Now everyone is watching Atalanta run;
everyone is dreaming they are the one
who can fly.
Atalanta speared the Caledonian boar
and saved Ancient Greece.
Deadly but too beautiful
to join the quest for the golden fleece-
Jason said no, he said hell no!
She who lives freely is misunderstood.
She likes it best alone in the woods
under the sky.
The forest is singing, can you hear the trees?
The creatures are talking, they don’t care what you think –
and the gift is this life and a star.
Everyone is watching Atalanta run.
No one can catch her, not even one,
but they try.
Atalanta’s running with wings on her feet.
She really would like someone to meet her
like an equal, just an equal.
So with some help from Aphrodite,
three golden apples left her crying
true love.
True
Love.
(To be continued…)
Endnotes:
- Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost (New York: Penguin Books, 2005), 4.
- Mayor, Adrienne, The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women Across the Ancient World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014), 63.
- Mayor, 208.
- Ibid, 84.
- Ibid, 156 – 157.
- Greek myth is replete with heroes like Theseus and Herakles who fall in love with Amazons they are sent to conquer. Achilles famously wept removing Penthesilea’s helmet after he killed her in battle at Troy.
- Mayor, 271.
- Ibid, 23.
Your article, song, and video are beautiful! I love how you include modern young women in your video – truly inspirational. I wish I had heard your song and seen your video when I was young! I loved the Amazons when I was growing up, too. There was only one small book I could find about them (this was in the 1970s) but I devoured every word. That the real Amazons have been found at this moment in time, when strong women are so needed in our world, is a miracle.
Hi Carolyn – I bet the book was Donald J. Sobol’s “The Amazons of Greek Mythology” (1973). It’s small-ish in size and was the only one at the time. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/509975.The_Amazons_of_Greek_Mythology
Yes, it is a miracle!
You might also be interested in Jeannine Davis Kimball’s work:
(Warrior Women: An Archeologist’s Search for History’s Hidden Heroines – Jeannine Davis Kimball)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1532092.Warrior_Women
Yes! That’s exactly the book! It had sort of become mythological to me because I remembered it so clearly but could never find it, even in my sister’s home library, where I first read it. Thank you also for the second reference! I’m familiar with Jeannine Davis Kimball, and her work is fascinating.
In an unrelated question, what is the instrument you are holding in your photo?
Jen I went looking for the footnotes but they are not here: I think they need to be added in please.