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Hippolyta
In Greek mythology, Hippolyte is the Amazonian queen
who possessed a magical girdle she was given by her father Ares, the god of
war.
Herakles' ninth labour was to obtain the girdle at the request of Admete,
Eurystheus' daughter. In one version of the story, Hippolyte fell in love with
Heracles and freely gave him the belt. According to another the girdle is
obtained by Herakles kidnapping Hippolyte's sister Melanippe and demanding the
girdle as the ransom, then releasing her after gaining the girdle.
After Herakles obtains the girdle, Theseus, one of Herakles' companions,
kidnaps Antiope, another sister of Hippolyte. The Amazons then attack the
party, but Herakles and Theseus
escape with the girdle and Antiope. According to one version, Herakles kills
Hippolyte as they flee. In order to rescue Antiope, the Amazons attack Athens
but fail, in some versions
with Antiope dying in the onslaught.
In many versions Theseus marries either Antiope or Hippolyte, having a son
named Hippolytus.
In the version in which Theseus is married to and leaves Hippolyte, she tries
to exact revenge by bringing the Amazons to Theseus and Phaedra's wedding in
order to kill everyone, although this fails when she is killed by Theseus' men
in some versions and by Penthesilea, another Amazon, in others.
Source:
Wikipedia.org
Amazons were said to have lived in
Pontus,which is part of modern day Turkey near the shore of the Euxine Sea,
where they formed an independent kingdom under the government
of a queen, often named Hippolyta ("she lets her horses loose").
In some versions, no men were permitted to reside in Amazon country; but once
a year, in order to prevent their race from dying out, they visited the
Gargareans, a neighbouring tribe. The male children who were the result of
these visits were either put to death or sent back to their fathers; the
females were kept and brought up by their mothers, and trained in agricultural
pursuits, hunting, and the art of war
The Amazons appear in connection with several Greek legends.
One of the tasks imposed upon Heracles by Eurystheus was to obtain possession
of the girdle of the Amazonian queen Hippolyte. He was accompanied by his
friend Theseus, who
carried off the princess Antiope, sister of Hippolyte, an incident which led
to a retaliatory invasion of Attica, in which Antiope perished fighting by the
side of Theseus. In some versions, however, Theseus marries Hippolyta and in
others, he marries Antiope and she does not die.
The Amazons are also said to have undertaken an expedition against the island
of Leuke, at the mouth of the Danube, where the ashes of Achilles had been
deposited by Thetis.
The ghost of the dead hero appeared and so terrified the horses, that they
threw and trampled upon the invaders, who were forced to retire.
While some regard the Amazons as a purely mythical people, others assume an
historical foundation for them. The deities worshipped by them were Ares (who
is consistently assigned to them as a god of war, and as a god of Thracian and
generally northern origin) and Artemis, not the usual Greek goddess of that
name, but an Asiatic deity in some respects her equivalent. It is conjectured
that the Amazons were originally the temple-servants and priestesses of this
goddess; and that the removal of the breast corresponded with the
self-mutilation of the god Attis and the galli, Roman priests of Cybele.
Another theory is that, as the knowledge of geography extended, travellers
brought
back reports of tribes ruled entirely by women, who carried out the duties
which elsewhere were regarded as peculiar to man, in whom alone the rights of
nobility and inheritance were
vested, and who had the supreme control of affairs. Hence arose the belief in
the Amazons as a nation of female warriors, organized and governed entirely by
women
Source:
Wikipedia.org |
