Amazons : The History Behind the Legend

by: Braund, D.

Price: 39,90 EURO

1 copy in stock

Amazons
The History Behind the Legend

Author: David Braund , University of Exeter

The idea of the Amazons is one of the most romantic and resonant in all antiquity. Greeks were fascinated by images and tales of these fierce female fighters. At Troy, Achilles' duel with Penthesilea was a clash of superman and superwoman. Achilles won the fight, but the queen's dying beauty had torn into his soul. This vibrant new book offers the first complete picture of the reality behind the legends. It shows there was much more to the Amazons than a race of implacable warrior women. David Braund casts the Amazons in a new light: as figures of potent agency, founders of cities, guileful and clever as well as physically impressive and sexually alluring to men. Black Sea mythologies become key to unlocking the Amazons' mystery. Investigating legend through history, literature, and archaeology, the author uncovers a truth as surprising and evocative as any fiction told through story or myth.

The first thoroughgoing examination of the history that lies behind the Amazon myths
Examines, in engaging detail, key texts about Penthesilea, Hippolyta, Achilles, Heracles, and Alexander the Great while placing these narratives in context around the Mediterranean and Black Sea shores and making deft use of comparative history and archaeology
David Braund, fluent in Georgian, is arguably the world's leading expert on Black Sea antiquity: his analysis of the Amazons carries the weight of in-depth authority
Will delight anyone with an interest in classical myth and history, not just classicists

Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction: Amazons in love, war, and mind: their significance in ancient Greek culture
1. Approaching Amazons
2. Amazons in battle: weapons, mind and body
3. Sex and motherhood
4. A duel of death and desire: Penthesilea vs. Achilles
5. Heracles' Amazon labour: Delphi, Olympia and colonial worlds
6. Shipwreck and reptiles: the queens of southern Russia
7. Amazon cities in Asia: Themiscyra, Ephesus and Halicarnassus
8. The pride of Athens
9. Artemis vs. Aphrodite: Greek women go Amazon
10. Alexander the Great and the Amazon queen
11. Conclusions: Amazon realities
Bibliography
Index.

Author
David Braund , University of Exeter
David Braund is Emeritus Professor of Classics at the University of Exeter. An internationally acclaimed authority on the ancient Black Sea, his books include Georgia in Antiquity: A History of Colchis and Transcaucasian Iberia, 550 BC–AD 562 (Oxford University Press, 1994) and Greek Religion and Cults in the Black Sea Region: Goddesses in the Bosporan Kingdom from the Archaic Period to the Byzantine Era (Cambridge University Press, 2018).

Geschichte der Antike : Bd. I: Das Archaische Griechenland / Bd. II: Das Klassische Griechenland / Bd. III: Der Hellenismus / Bd. IV: Die Romische Republik / Bd. V: Die Romische Kaiserzeit / Bd. VI: Die Spatantike

by: Stein-Holkeskamp, E. Schmidt-Hofner, S. Scholz, P. Blosel, P. Eich, A. Pfeilschifter, R.

• ISBN-13: 9783534278022 / 978-3-534-27802-2
• ISBN-03: 353427802X / 3-534-27802-X
• Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt, 2019

Price: 119,00 EURO

(in stock)

Amazons : The History Behind the Legend

by: Braund, D.

• ISBN-13: 9781108834490
• ISBN-03: 1108834493
• Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2025

Price: 39,90 EURO

1 copy in stock