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

by Steven Pressfield

  Yet mightier ovation saluted this. And Eleuthera, borne aloft as an eagle, elevated her impeachment to a yet more truculent pitch.

  “Our guest in his oration praises the city for its gentility and restraint. Between the lines he calls us savages. Are we, sisters? Consider our pass:

  “We are women unmastered by men, yet hemmed on all quarters by those who would inflict this wretched state upon us. Do you wonder at our ferocity? Other nations fight to preserve their native soil; only we must defend our flesh and souls, which men would enslave if they could, as they have in every other quadrant. Your own wives and mothers, Athenians, once held the franchise, I have heard. They could vote and owned an equal voice in affairs of state. You stole this from them—your king Cecrops did—immuring them in servitude and silence. Never will tal Kyrte endure this! We are bound by our resistance to those who would make chattel of us. We as no other people stand isolated and apart, with none to count as allies save our own spirit and resolve. Do we defend ourselves like wild beasts? You would too! Do we spurn quarter? You would too! Enemies envelop us and more come, as yourselves, across oceans to steal our freedom.”

  She faced Theseus directly now. “And if you think to thieve it from us, thou pirate, remember this: in other societies, willingness to die for the nation is a virtue which must be inculcated. Not in ours. Among the free people allegiance unto death arises as immanently as in a pack of wolves and endures, as impossible to eradicate. I will embrace my own slaughter this moment, and so will every woman and girl here, to preserve our freedom. And if the free people must fall, then nothing of us shall remain, for we will bathe the earth in our blood and yours before surrendering this liberty we love so that we call ourselves by its name, tal Kyrte: the Free.”

  Further uproar ensued, with thousands acclaiming Eleuthera’s fervency, while others cried out that such excess was exorbitant, no proper way to address a guest. And Eleuthera herself, perceiving that her rancor had waxed immoderate, stepped aside and abated her harangue.

  Antiope stepped in. She proposed to Theseus that the Athenian resume his panegyric and carry it to its close, at which point Eleuthera might respond. All approved.

  “I commend our most excellent friend,” Theseus resumed, with a bow to Eleuthera, “and her heartfelt encomium of the life of the steppe. I make no brief in opposition. But she has closed her discourse upon the subject of death. Let us pick up there, and carry on.

  “Beyond all which divides nation from nation, one lot unites us: our mortality. Death’s mill makes grist of us all. This before all elevates humankind above the beasts: we alone foreken our mortality. We alone know we must die.

  “The nature of our species is savage. The imperative of predation resides as deeply in our bones as in the wolf and the lion. Yet the foreknowledge of our extinction not only dissevers us from these brutes, but imposes upon us an obligation. For beyond God’s statute of slaughter rises another, mightier decree.

  “Humankind is commanded to ascend from savagery. This is God’s mandate, which cries out from the epicenter of our being: the imperative to mount from the base to the noble, from the savage to the civil, from beast to human.

  “In earlier eras men knew no law. He slew those even of his own family, and when he vanquished his enemies, the savagery of his vengeance exceeded even that of wild beasts. How brutal and appalling have been his acts of atrocity!

  “But let me not try your patience, friends. Only hear and consider. There exists a universal law, before which even the gods must bow: the higher supersedes the lower. As the Titans and the Sons of Earth have been overthrown by Zeus and the Olympians, so must the race of men and women continue to progress, toward humanity and apart from bestiality, toward reason and apart from passion, toward love and away from fear.”

  Theseus concluded by praising the clemency of Hippolyta and Antiope, yes, and even Eleuthera, and of the nation of tal Kyrte entire. In granting sanctuary to him and his men they had acted as Zeus Who Protects the Stranger would have them act and thus sided with the higher impulses of humanity, not the baser reflexes of beasts. He thanked them and stepped down.

  Now the people called for Eleuthera to respond. But she had observed the closeness with which Antiope had attended Theseus throughout the debate. She saw her mate moved by the foreigner’s eloquence and bending to his case. For this reason and others she declined to respond, declaring herself no orator, but called instead upon Antiope, as war queen, and bade her pronounce the rebuttal in the people’s name. For Eleuthera hoped, by setting her lover as antagonist to the Athenian, to crush in the shoot any affinity budding between them, or, if Antiope would not take him on, then compel her to demonstrate this before the people. I stood immediately to Antiope’s left and could see her face throughout this summons. Though she perceived her friend’s motive, yet the acclamation of the tribes could not let her slip this call. She came forward and began:

  “Sisters and mothers, daughters, allies, and friends, I have not mounted to this platform prepared to rebut our Athenian guest’s panegyric. I accede only at your command and speak, not from my reason, as this Greek would say”—here she nodded, but did not look, in the direction of Theseus—“but from the ground of my being and all being, which is God, which is all that is and all that will be. This my heart commands me to speak:

  “Humankind may not ascend to God by evolution, as our guest warrants, but only fall from Him. Our guest looks upon God’s creatures and calls them brutes. I say it is we who deserve that name. Let us make them our teachers—the earth and her elements, her children of four legs and her winged captains of the air. They have come straight from God and speak his tongue direct and untutored. Only we have fallen, and by those very arts which our friend from across the sea acclaims as evolutionary. He looks upon sky and steppe and sees that which God has created. I look and see God Himself. Let us enroll ourselves in His academy of wind and sky, birth and death, of seasons ordained eternal. Here is our Teacher; in His book is all we need to know.

  “The city, our friend declares, is man’s creation, the produce of his reason, by which he may ascend from the state of savagery. I answer by calling his attention to this rock. I bid him look to that sea. Has man made either? So long as sun rises and rain falls, man can make nothing. Not the sky nor the earth, nor seeds nor horses nor stone. Man has not so much as seen or spoken even these thoughts which blaspheme His name, save by the Almighty’s grace, or drawn one solitary breath absent heaven’s license. Moons and stars God makes and throws away. With but a puff He blows out the lamp of our lives.”

  As she spoke, Theseus studied her. And though he made his face a mask, yet this was plain: the words with which Antiope refuted his testament arose with such purity from her heart that as each fell upon his flesh, as the blow of a lash, he received them as they were kisses. He had not been felled, one saw, by Eros’ bolt. Rather he had encountered in his antagonist that which he had never known before, or even knew existed—a mind and spirit equal or superior to his own—and before this he genuflected, not so much to her, whose gifts struck and illumined him, but to that greater Spirit in whose name she spoke.

  And Antiope, perceiving, submerged herself in that stream whose power guided and animated her speech, so that her words beat upon him as combers upon a strand, and he endured them, casting each back with his silence and acceptance, that it in its retreat might assist to form that next crest, which broke upon him and enlarged his joy.

  “Our guest in other contexts,” Antiope continued, “has employed the word ‘barren’ to describe what he perceives as the ‘emptiness’ of the steppe. Look again, my friend. Her seeds and grasses feed us, her wind animates our spirit, her mantle swathes us gently in our sleep. Shall we ‘cultivate’ her? I will never let my people farm, for she who farms cannot dream, and who cannot dream cannot live. Husbandry of the earth does not ennoble man but degrades him, for it sows within his breast the blasphemy that earth belongs to him. Nothing belongs to us! Not even ours
elves and our lives, which are God’s and have been since our birth. To call a thing one’s own is madness. Such thinking engenders greed and avarice, acquisitiveness and niggardliness. It rends brother from brother, making men to count and measure everything. Is this ‘progress’? Progress to what?

  “Does our guest imagine that the nations of tal Kyrte have stood, for want of intelligence or industry, incapable of building cities? We don’t want cities! To dwell within such a press of humanity deforms the soul. Give us silence and solitude, which purify and concentrate the spirit. Shall we build temples to God? Why, when His cathedral compasses us day and night! Preach to us not of reverence, for we tread in God’s footprints every step of our days, and account no trespass graver than to stray from His path.

  “The life of the city has made men less than they were, not more. And as for your women, I have seen them, I am sorry to say. Is even one as beautiful as these? They are painted whores, your wives, who have bartered their souls for a place out of the rain and not even sold them dear. Your women are shells of what God intended and you know it, or you would not have crossed oceans to trail after us, moonstruck as calves!

  “Those gods to whom you erect temples, Theseus, are in my view but reproductions of yourselves, and laughable ones at that. Here is heaven before you! Seek no further, only hold still and annul the yammering of your ‘reason.’ I despise reason if it severs me from my soul and from God.

  “But the greatest proof of the rightness of my argument (and the mightiest refutation of your own) arises from you yourself, Theseus. For if you truly believed what you preach, you would be home now, trudging behind a plough. But you are not, are you? You are here, with us!”

  Such acclaim greeted this as made the very earth pitch and tremble. Spearshafts resounded upon shields, soles smote the plain; even the horses stamped and nickered as if they understood. Antiope elevated her arms to still the tumult.

  “And if you would gainsay me,” she addressed Theseus, “declaring that the men you have brought with you from Athens feel bereft upon these shores and pine in their hearts for home, I challenge you to command them now, before the witness of this host, to form again into their companies and embark upon their ships. They will revolt and you know it! They are happy here, as you are.”

  The multitude burst into laughter, Amazons and allies first, then Athenians, when I had translated. Theseus replied, in like tone to his men, that in at least one of civilization’s arts he and they had been bested—that of oratory.

  Antiope grasped the meaning of the Greek before it had been translated, and leapt upon it.

  “Not oratory has vanquished you, my friend, but you have fallen beneath your own weapon, which is reason. Is this not your god, Theseus? Then admit that even we who are untutored and uncivilized possess insight from which you may profit.”

  The king acknowledged with a bow. Cheers resounded, as much for his concession as for Antiope’s triumph.

  At this instant a rider galloped in through the gate between the earthworks. This was my own trikona-mate Aella, “Little Whirlwind,” a lass of twelve, whose post at this season lay on the northern steppe with the great breeding herds being moved to summer pasture. She thundered now onto the square, her horse lathered and tongue-sprung, and reined-in before the speaker’s stand. Before the maid had caught breath to speak, the nation had divined what evil news she bore.

  Borges and his Iron Mountain Scyths, the girl reported, had appeared without warning, two nights past, at the ford of the Hybristes, where she and the novices of the White Mountain clans tended a herd of three thousand. Borges had approached the camp, proffering signs of friendship. He had been welcomed. His men had gone so far as to unyoke the oxen from their women’s waggons and even laid out their bedding for the night. But at a signal they rose and attacked. Their numbers were above a thousand; the lasses’ under two hundred. Those Borges did not slaughter at their posts, his men ran down and butchered on the plain. He rounded up the herd, three thousand prime stock, and drove east toward the Scythian homeland.

  Uproar erupted. Theseus advanced before Antiope, Eleuthera, and the other captains. “This is my fault. Let me make it right. I am not without ability and my companions are heroes and champions all, eager to prove their mettle to you. Give us only a guide and horses and we will set out this night and come back either with your stolen property, to restore it intact to you, or not come back at all.”

  15

  REFLECTIONS IN

  GOD’S MIRROR

  The avenging brigade was on the move in the time it takes to gallop ten furlongs. Of course Theseus’ Greeks could not be licensed to requite an outrage against the free people. They were permitted to accompany the troop as auxiliaries only. Tal Kyrte supplied horses. I gave Damon three from my string. I had assumed sponsorship of him, as they say in our tongue, yste arran, to “stand at the shoulder.” This meant I was responsible both for his safety and his comportment. In battle I would defend his life; in society I would make sure he behaved himself.

  My first duty was to teach him to ride. This proved no trifling chore. For though he declared himself a prizewinning equestrian in his own country (and though I mounted him on my cleverest and most tractable horse, a gelding named Knothole), not only did he prove incapable of fight riding, to hold a line in assault, say, or execute an up-and-back, but he could not even trot in a straight line across dry level plain.

  The novices called him Motanis, “Stone Hands,” and trotted in his train, giggling. In his defense, few of his compatriots did better. They were all hopeless. They insisted upon “ruling” their horses, attempting to “handle” them as they would a Greek beast. “Your horse knows how to trot, Damon. You don’t have to teach him!”

  In truth I was charmed to witness my sweetheart’s frustration. I could see he was in love with me. He wanted so badly to appear competent in my eyes. I could not respond, of course. I would not, particularly in the stern circumstances under which we rode. But in my heart I felt the sweetness of answered love.

  The army pressed on. Damon was keen to acquire our tongue; I practiced my Greek on him, explaining where we were and what would happen.

  The Tanais River flows northeast to southwest, I told him, three hundred miles ahead. From here to there is Amazon country; on the other side the Scythian lands begin. Borges must cross the Tanais to get home. We would overtake him at the ford and cut him down.

  There was danger on the way, however. For, to reach the Tanais, Borges and his eleven hundred must pass through the territory of the Titaneia, the Eastern Amazons. Within this expanse grazed more of tal Kyrte’s herds; the Scyths might attempt to seize these and slaughter the girls who watched over them, as no warning could reach the maids in time.

  “How many days’ ride?” Damon asked.

  “Four or five.”

  And what would Borges do with the stolen horses?

  “Keep some for his own wealth, bestow others as rewards to his princes. The best three hundred he will keep aside, to sacrifice over his brother Arsaces’ barrow. They will constitute Arsaces’ fortune in the life after.”

  Tal Kyrte does not picket its horses at night but permits them to graze, protected by outriders. I watched Damon’s pleasure as he wandered out among them. The bands responded to his approach. They are fearless and full of mischief. The boldest noses up first; he sniffs the man all over, nuzzling between his legs, under his arms, against his ears. Now the whole band packs in. They surround the fellow, picking his wallet for treats, taking his fingers and hair between their lips; they nip him and butt him and jostle him. At times Damon appeared lifted off his feet by their merry press. I could see him weep. I knew this ecstasy. He was being swept up by the wild ways.

  “Will we fight the Scyths, Selene?”

  “Oh, yes!”

  “What will happen?”

  I explained that the foe could not outrun us, trailing the stolen herds. He must tarry for pasturage, spend hours crossing rivers, nor would
the thirsty beasts be easily driven off from a good stream, once they had gained it. Further, the steppe across which Borges must flee was carved by washes and ravines called “breaks,” whose walls may plunge sixty feet below the level of the plain. To double these without a guide, the Scyths must track laterally seeking a crossing. This could be miles.

  Damon asked how the fight would go.

  I anticipated a sharp skirmish, followed by a rout. We would slay between thirty and a hundred. The rest would flee. We would take back our herds and avenge our daughters. Equally important, each warrioress would acquire scalps, prize mounts of the foe, not to say fame, glory, and wounds of honor. How many would we lose? Damon asked. I told him none. When he questioned this, I laughed.