Amazonomachy carved on the Parthenon’s west metopes numbers 1 and 2, in situ, the only figures still visible on the elevation. The “Strangford shield,” an incomplete 2nd c. A.D. Roman version of the Amazonomachy embossed on the outside of Athena Parthenos’ copper shield.
most popular prospects Figure 1. Black figure vases from Attica account for most of the Amazon images that have come down to us, and Heracles in battle with them – Amazonomachies – are by far the most numerous: 409 by one count. Here, (570 B.C.), Heracles takes the [labeled] Amazon queen Andromache captive, although in all the textual traditions his opponent is only ever styled “Hippolyte” or “Antiope”. The anomaly – whereby on all the vases with Heracles she is inscribed as either “Andromache,”
Trojan Hector’s widow, or “Andromeda”, namesake of the constellation bestowed by Athena in the Perseus cycle – refers to the more ancient cultic practice in which each of these queens originally underwent sacrificial death. The neck and the breast, where Amazon queens are wounded, are the same as those of women who underwent violent death, so that with “...names like Andromache and Andromeda, we may cautiously infer that the Amazons present us with ‘Epic Ways of Killing a Woman.’” [J.H.Blok].
Figure 2. By 460 B.C, Heracles disappears completely on the vases to be replaced by Theseus, the Athenian hero, while Amazons are increasingly seen on their own on about 300 vases, both black and red figured. Often named, they are usually the “Thermodon” Amazons, daughters of Ares and Harmonia. Below, Amazons arming: Antiope is in the center blowing the war trumpet, Hypsipyle (the leader of the women of Lemnos who temporarily behaved like Amazons) is on the right, gazing back: Theseus’ lover, she
is made prominent. Looking slight and on the left of center is Heracles’ aforementioned Andromache, who loses pride of place to the new hero’s imperial spin. Late black-figure, around 500 B.C. Their chitons have become transparent and breasts have become noticeable. The Greeks were particularly titillated by buttocks, child and man. This thrill was apparently transferred over even to “manly” female Amazons, “equivalent of men.”
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