Last of the Amazons Last of the Amazons Last of the Amazons

by Steven Pressfield

  I imagined that these derelictions, once effected, would put a period to my life, as an axe, falling, shears a shoot of pine. But acts of import, I have learned, bear issue of their own and form that field from which other imperatives arise. Destiny begets destiny, it seems, and neither Eleuthera’s nor mine, nor Antiope’s and Theseus’ and our nations’ entire, had yet, then, reached its consummation.

  BOOK FOUR

  THE AMAZON

  SEA

  9

  A PRINCE OF ATTICA

  Mother Bones:

  The posse under Atticus now embarked from the River of Fire, bound again for the Amazon Sea. All resolved to think no more of return to Athens, but fixed their purpose upon completion of the mission, do or die.

  Heaven now sent fair weather. The ships glided north before a favoring wind. At Phthia the hero Peleus welcomed the vessels. The horses got grain into their bellies for the first time since the storm. Fresh meat for the men heartened the company considerably. Repairs were made, new sails and oars shipped; recruits of adventurous spirit restored the flotilla to its complement. For myself, I reveled in my sister’s company; just to have Europa present set the sun back in the sky. The men’s blood purged itself of poisons; grief receded for those lost. It seemed that fortune had come round our way at last.

  Then on the fifth morn the companies woke to discover Europa gone. She had made off during the night, taking her own horse and another, with rations and arms, despite double watches on the cavalcade and pickets every forty feet. Spirits plummeted. Not that the men had held my sister’s recovery as justification for their toil. But it had been a success, the only one they could look to, set against lives lost and perils undergone. Now they must hunt her again, possibly as foe this time, and the start she had would give Selene, when Europa overhauled her, even more warning to rally forces against whom our companies must contend.

  Father was devastated. He scourged himself for this dereliction, to lose his daughter not once but twice. For my part Europa’s desertion had left me heartbroken, not just that she had flown but that she had flown without me. It did not occur to me to hate her; she was perfect and always would be. I reproached myself instead. Something must be wrong with me, or my sister could never have left me so!

  One among the company took note of my misery. This was Prince Atticus, who might be absolved, as Europa’s betrothed-to-be, for being more concerned with his own bereavement. That first dawn he had led one mounted party and sent two others after Europa, seeking sign. All had come back with nothing. I was wiping down the horses of the first company when the prince approached. “You’re not going to bolt too, are you, Thyone?” He was aware of my nickname, Bones, but was kind enough not to use it. “I should hate to face you as well,” he said, “across the line of battle.”

  The prince’s tone was teasing; I cannot overstate how much this meant. I felt tears and swiped my face that he not see. He looked away. The curls at his neck were held by a silver pin in the shape of a cicada. It seemed the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

  “Are we in the wrong, Thyone? To track Selene, I mean. It is my father Lykos’ doing, stirring the hornets’ nest to work harm to Theseus. But the swarm, once loosed, is not so easily put back.”

  How I esteemed him for addressing me thus! I longed to offer something to allay his burden but could not find my tongue. He seemed to sense this. He smiled.

  “Give me your word, then, that you will not run. Otherwise I shall have to set a watch over you.”

  The other who took care for me was Damon. My uncle put me to work caring for the horses, addressed me as “wrangler” and ordered me about in a gruff voice, for which kindness I could never repay him. At his command I slept beneath his bearskin and arose to stand watches at his side. I began to ken his rough-timbered ways. “Consider how warriors of Amazonia ride in their triples,” he counseled me. “Not shoulder to shoulder but wide apart, sometimes nearly out of sight across the plain. Yet the slightest chirrup will send each flying to the other’s aid. This is how you must think of yourself and your sister. Do you understand?”

  The ships embarked from Thessaly on the ninth day, navigating north by Athos, that mountain holy to Zeus, which appeared for two dawns on the port quarter, passed abeam, then at last sank from sight beneath the stern. The vessels coasted western Thrace now, drawing toward the Strymon. This was wild country. War parties of tribesmen tracked our passage from the shore. When we landed to take our meals and to make camp, they approached, demanding drink and baubles and sniffing about the ships, light-fingered. One heard Greek no more but savage tongues.

  The sea smelled different this far from home. Light was harsher, nights colder. I had to mind my cheekiness with the men now; they had gone testy and stalked the runway, spoiling for fights. They were scared. They gravitated about those veterans—Damon, Philippus, Phormion called Ant, even Father, irascible as he was—who had experience of these regions and could apprise them of what trials might lie ahead.

  Above the shell beach which marks the frontier of Strymonian Thrace, Atticus called the companies together. It was evening, after the meal and hymn. A stockade had been erected, horses picketed, arms stacked, and sentries posted.

  “Comrades, the elements have favored us since the River of the Underworld, all thanks to God. It has been my judgment, as the aboriginal tribes have thus far permitted us passage, to concentrate upon making speed east. Now, however, we must recall ourselves to the business at hand. Within ten days we shall strike the Hellespont, or so the natives of this place apprise us. Another ten will bear us into the Black Sea—the Amazon Sea, as it is called out here—from which only Heracles, Jason, and our own Theseus have returned. We younger men know nothing of this country. Our intelligence of the race of warrior women, not to say the other savage tribes of the region, is slender at best, comprised primarily of myth and legend and tales from our fathers of the Amazons’ march on Athens. Therefore I have assembled the complement this night, to put forth a call to our veterans.”

  He turned to Ant and Philippus, Father and Damon, and the other men who had sailed on the first expedition.

  “Come forward, gentlemen. Our squadron coasts the same shoreline you sailed with Theseus, twenty years past. Tell us of that voyage. When exactly did it take place? For what ends was it undertaken? What happened when you reached the Amazon homeland? And how may the companies of our current voyage profit from your experience?”

  First to respond was Phormion called Ant, who had saved Damon’s life at Hell’s River; he offered bloodcurdling tales of the women warriors’ ruthlessness and ferocity. Next spoke Aristocrates the wrangler, proffering equally mane-blanching sagas.

  Then came Philippus. This fellow, a crack cavalryman, was a dear mate of Damon’s and, apparently, as wild as a weed. He introduced himself by the nickname he had been given in Amazonia—“Dew Lap”—with which the wild women had tagged him, he swore, upon remarking the scale of his naked manhood.

  “Here is no fiction, brothers. For my ‘dog’ swung between my thighs in those days like the clapper of a watch commander’s bell. I was hung like a Prienean ass.”

  The men roared. This was more like it. Philippus alias Dew Lap had fortified himself with a snootful of Ismar, the dark Thracian wine, and now, nosing into a third and fourth bowl, set to disarm his confederates of their apprehensions. Perhaps no war awaited, but love! Our companies might fend off kisses and not blows! The men clapped their wine bowls in ovation.

  Philippus spoke of the horse-derived nature of the societies of the steppe: Amazons breed in one season only, like mares, and as promiscuously. The neighboring tribes assemble, those trolleying globes of iron, in Philippus’ phrase, and a randy jamboree is held, lasting two months or more. Yet hold your jism, he counseled his listeners.

  “One does not court these wenches, lads, but they you. To mate with a lioness would be as lenient of toil. Should you fancy one above others, a spiked heart will be your profit. For they ca
ll themselves melissa, ‘bee,’ and like these flutter flower to flower. Nor do they know the word privacy. Two and three will take a man at once, jabbering in their savage tongue the while. And if you call yourself stud to hoist the tent pole, try it with three wild vixens disporting about you in a tongue you can’t savvy, and giggling. And don’t forget, bucks, that these bawdy bitches are horsewomen from birth; many’s the stallion they’ve gelded with the flint knife, so that it’s nothing to them, a chore of denutting. Recall this as they grapple your globes in passion. I’d sooner mate with a wildcat.”

  The men whooped and cheered. Many called out that they’d gladly take their chances, so long had this sea trek enforced celibacy upon them. Their mentor wagged a finger.

  “Not so fast, lads, for here’s more matter to turn over. When in shipboard reverie you conjure visions of these Moon Maids, each floats before you more comely than the next. Now fetch reality. For these ‘Daughters of the Horse’ may live up to their name! Ough, such faces! And if you meet their eye, out of curiosity only, they take the notion you fancy them. Then, lads, you’d better sprout wings, for they’ll run you down afoot as fast as a horse!

  “Here came one I loved,” Philippus twined his tale. “She set me up against an oak, lifting my skirts and seizing mast and anchor stones in both fists. I fancied this strumpet, by Orpheus’ lyre I did, and sought throughout the bout to woo her with amorous phrase. I would make her my bride, I swore, and bear her home across the sea. I extolled her beauty and besought her love. ‘Anora! Anora!’ she cried, with such passion I knew I had conquered her heart. ‘Anora, anora!’ I bawled in return, and when she had got my seed, not once but twice (aye, I was a younger man then!), and bolted, leaving me spent, I inquired of one passing, what does this mean, ‘Anora’? ‘It means shut up,’ he replied.”

  More such lore was narrated, to the delight of all, not least myself. And now Philippus, turning to Damon, made jest that he of all could offer instruction in Amazon love, and summoned him forward. Uncle protested, citing his wounds of Hell’s River, yet such was the eagerness of the men, and so vigorously declaimed, that at last Damon must yield and mount to the fore.

  “Our friend Philippus’ speech proves one thing: the older you get, the more spectacularly hung you used to be.” Damon bowed theatrically to his mate. “As to this Amazon romancing, however, I never saw such stuff. Perhaps, my friend, your celebrated endowment provided you entry to a steamier quarter of the camp.”

  The companies responded with much profane chaffing of their comrade Dew Lap.

  “My experience was the opposite,” Uncle resumed when the levity had abated. “I never saw an Amazon mate in the open and I challenge any to declare he has. They build bridal bowers, most modest, of willow stalks plaited with limbs of white poplar. They select a grove in a high meadow or vale of the plain and fabricate a sort of arbor, waist-high and open at one end. Upon the floor they set hides of elk or ibex and hang that charm called a cypridion, the passion knot of Aphrodite, upon the lintel.

  “Nor is such occasion the subject of jest or whimsy to them. Recall, friends, that for these maids the object of intercourse is not carnal rapture but produce of offspring. They wanted female issue, the taller and stronger the better. Nor have they come to this privilege absent adversity, but each must have woven three scalps of enemies into the mane of her pony simply to earn this right. To daunt the foreign suitor further, he must compete against beefhearts of the neighboring tribes, hairy as Hephaestus, many of whom have known these lasses since childhood, or got foals on them heretofore, or their fathers have. They become affianced just like we do, with costly gifts and dowries, and families share bonds over generations.

  “But let me reverse, gentlemen, to matter more germane to our present predicament. Our commander, Prince Atticus, has requested that we veterans share our intelligence of the country into which this expedition now advances. He asks that we address business of which you youngsters stand as yet in ignorance. Why was the former expedition undertaken? What was our king Theseus’ object and how may we of this present party profit from our predecessors’ ordeals? Let me call my brother Elias forward, who not only served on that voyage but earned command by his initiative and valor.”

  He turned to Father, urging him to speak. Father resisted. The company however, led by Prince Atticus, pressed him earnestly. “You are friend and kinsman of Theseus, sir, and in those days as now much within his confidence. Who can enlighten us more ably than yourself?”

  Father rose and came forward. The companies had drawn up on the strand between two beached ships. Bonfires lit the interval, bound by the black hulls glistening with freshly applied pitch. The space, though great enough to contain above a hundred, yet felt sheltered and snug.

  Father thanked Atticus first and commended him for convening this assembly. “Atticus, I have had my eye on you since you were a sprout. I judged then that your nature incorporated those qualities which would render you one day preeminent among our race. This is why I accepted service beneath your command on this expedition and, as well and with pride, made compact with your family to betroth to you my daughter Europa. Nothing I have seen on this passage has countered that conviction. Forgive me if grief has estranged me from yourself and this company. And you, gentlemen, permit me to make up for my self-imposed sequestration. I shall obey our commander and, if you will heed me, offer such intelligence as experience may provide.”

  A bowl was redrawn; Father wet his throat and began. . . .

  10

  THE BIRTH OF DEMOCRACY

  Father’s testimony:

  The first Athenian voyage to the Amazon Sea, whose course we now retrace, embarked some twenty years prior to this date. Theseus was thirty or thereabout, I twenty-five, my brother Damon twenty. Philippus, what were you—nineteen? Other veterans among our current corps were surely little older.

  Why did the expedition sail? What was Theseus’ object? To answer we must hark back to that hour of Athens’s chronicle. Now pay attention, friends, and heed this recounting:

  At that time, and for the first time, the warring baronies of Attica had been drawn into confederation. This was Theseus’ doing. He had made them all Athenians. Such did not sit well with every headknocker. The princes, say, of Marathon or Aexone, held their fiefdoms jealously; when they met in council in the palace they brawled like barn cats. I was then a buck lancer of Theseus’ corps and I can tell you, the place was a riot.

  Theseus overturned this by a single stroke: he moved the sessions outdoors, to the hill of the Pnyx, where the people could attend and observe their betters. What a revolution this affected!

  Before, within the walls of the palace, the knights could comport themselves as churlishly as they wished. Now before the eye of the commonwealth, they had to behave.

  Theseus set his council throne on a ledge overlooking the platform and from this vantage governed the debate. Yet when he argued a brief himself, he made it a point to dismount this post of privilege and offer his opinion from the floor, as an ordinary citizen, so to say.

  Again this alteration proved miraculous. For though it was clear that no baron could match the prestige of the king or the presence of the man, nonetheless the very fact of Theseus’ voluntary condescension acted as a tonic of emancipation. He commanded the herald to convoke each session with the call, “Who comes forward with good advice for the city?”

  Thus was rhetoric born, and the art of public speaking. But Theseus saw beyond an invigorated Council of Nobles. His vision forekenned that agency by which Athens would be elevated before all polities of the world: the participation of the people themselves.

  In the heat of disputation, our king divined, no faction would limit itself to advocates of noble birth, but call forward all champions possessed of wisdom or skill in debate. This, Theseus abetted by his own hand. For when he spied a landsman, say, or grover daunted to orate before his betters, he set the skeptron himself in the fellow’s fist and stood at his shoulder
as he spoke.

  How the hidebound revolted! Yet there is this and none may refute it: when a man, however mean of birth, speaks true, his words ring as gold. And if his counsel prove of utility to the commonwealth, foolish indeed is he who would despise it. So it came about that at Athens and Athens alone, any may speak and all listen.

  Friends, I have trod the Lion’s Walk of Mycenae and trekked the colonnade of seven-gated Thebes. These are not cities but courts. Royal courts. Nor are their peoples citizens, but subjects. They wait, dumb, upon their masters. “Aye” is their lone rejoinder, save “Milord.”

  This was Athens too, before our king set her emancipation. Theseus gave her a voice, and this has made her the jewel and envy of the world. At Athens and Athens alone, a new stamp of person was being born, neither baron nor yeoman, but a man of the city. A citizen.

  So enamored did men become of this liberated discourse that hundreds, my own father among them, took to overnighting in town, just to be near the action. With such concentration the city acquired a political energy unprecedented. On days when the Assembly didn’t meet, the chorus did not tramp back to the farm, but picked up the tune on its own, in the marketplace. This body possessed no official standing; its findings carried no legislative weight. Yet what knight was so witless as to take a position in the big Assembly if it had failed first to carry the little?