“Aeschylus described them as ‘the Amazons of the land of Colchis, the virgins fearless in battle, the Scythian hordes who live at the world’s end.’”

By David Grant

IN NOVEMBER OF 1977, excavators in the northern Greek town of Vergina unearthed what would later be described as the “archaeological find of the century.”

Hidden beneath a large mound, now known as the Great Tumulus, lay a Macedonian-style shrine with a cluster of four tombs, two of which appeared to be unlooted. After decades of sterile digs, archaeologists had finally located the ancient city of Aegae, the first capital of Macedon and burial ground of its kings.

The precious artefacts within Tombs II and III dated to the middle-to-late fourth century BC, a period spanning the reigns of Philip II and his son Alexander the Great. Indeed, the entire burial site was soon dubbed “the cluster of Philip II.”

In the main chamber of Tomb II, a gold chest held the cremated bones of a male. Adding to the intrigue were the also-cremated remains of a woman in the antechamber; surely Philip’s last young wife, Cleopatra.

This double burial suggested unique historical circumstances that might reveal the occupants. But a 30-year ‘battle of bones’ raged over the identifications. Their estimated ages at death meant the occupants could also be Philip’s halfwit son, Arrhidaeus, and his equally young wife, Adea.

But there was another intrigue: the remains of the female were weaponized; spearheads, remnants of a breastplate, an ornate pectoral and gilded greaves lay beside the body. An item of great mystery accompanied them: a gold bow-and-arrow quiver styled like the hip-slung gorytos of Scythian archers. This led the vexed excavator to propose that the Tomb II woman had “Amazonian leanings.”

The mythical Amazons, along with the very real Scythian tribes, were frequently mentioned in the same breath in ancient Greece. Aeschylus described them as “the Amazons of the land of Colchis, the virgins fearless in battle, the Scythian hordes who live at the world’s end.” Herodotus’ Histories explains how the fates of Amazons and Scythians became intertwined on the northern shores of the Black Sea where Greeks would settle to trade.

In burial mounds known as kurgans, more than 112 graves of women buried with weapons were unearthed between the Don and the Danube rivers. Many were scarred with arrow wounds. The high proportion of females with weapons suggests 25 per cent of Scythian fighters were women, a figure rising as more skeletal remains undergo DNA testing. But who was the Scythian-outfitted warrioress in Tomb II?

One hypothesis favoured a daughter of King Atheas of the Danubian Scythians, who, at one, stage planned an alliance with Philip II. The truce broke and battle ensued, but scholars conjectured that a captured daughter could have become Philip’s concubine or wife. But no such woman is ever mentioned in sources. Moreover, the Tomb II female was interred without feminine accessories, where Scythians were buried with jewellery.

Inevitably, tales of Amazons entered the history of Alexander who was determined to retrace pre-history’s colourful sagas. The young Macedonian conqueror is said to have crossed paths with 300 of the fabled warrioresses during his conquest of Persia, even partaking in a 13-day tryst with an Amazon queen. Various embassies from the more-easily accounted for Scythian tribes are found in the campaign accounts.

But there is no need for a Scythian bride to explain the Tomb II quiver. Gold artefacts found in Scythian graves are, in fact, of Greek workmanship, likely from the Kingdom of Bosporus near modern Crimea. There was a thriving metalworking industry in Macedon itself. Local production of export items for Scythian warlords in this period of expanded diplomacy means the solution to the mystery of the entombed Amazon of Macedon could lie closer to home.

The curators of the Vergina museum dismiss the Tomb II ‘female warrior’ theory wholesale, explaining the weapons belonged to the male, as their upright position against the dividing door of their chambers suggests. That notion died when anthropologists found a wound on the woman’s left shinbone, proving the weapons and armour were hers. Trauma to her tibia had caused shortening of her leg, and one of her gilded greaves was 3.5-centimetres shorter than the other: it had been custom sized to her deformity.

Analysis of her pubic bones also aged her to approximately 32. This ruled out both Philip’s older and younger brides and excluded the teenage wife of his halfwit son, and therefore Arrhidaeus himself.

The Warrioresses of Macedon

Interestingly enough, it wasn’t only Scythian women who were inclined to war. Within the royal clan of Macedon there were no shortage of dynastic daughters with ‘Amazonian leanings’ available for military marriages and bargaining chips in the politicking of Philip and Alexander and in the Successor Wars that followed. As such, new anthropological evidence argues for another Tomb II candidate: Cynnane, a daughter of Philip II. She was a renowned warrior who reportedly killed an Illyrian queen in one-on-one combat.

Following Philip’s assassination in 336 BC, his fifth wife Olympias – Alexander’s mother – executed Philip’s final young bride, Cleopatra. Alexander next executed Cynnane’s dangerously popular husband, Amyntas Perdicca, with whom the warrior princess had a daughter. Alexander summarily paired Cynnane in a political marriage to a loyal warlord to the north. He died soon after leaving Cynnane to raise her daughter who she “schooled in the arts of war.” The girl was named Adea.

The ‘First War of Women’

At Alexander’s death in Babylon in June 323 BC, Cynnane crossed to Asia with the now-teenage Adea against the wishes of the state regent determined to launch her into the developing game of thrones. Alexander’s second-in-command in Asia was just as determined to prevent the rogue royal women from intriguing and sent troops to intercept the mother and daughter.

During a resulting skirmish, Cynnane was run through. Furious at seeing a daughter of Philip murdered, the soldiers demanded Adea be presented to the new co-king, Arrhidaeus, who had been crowned at Babylon after Alexander’s death. So in a twist of fate, Philip’s pugnacious granddaughter was married to his own halfwit son. Both were escorted back to Macedon, but not before Adea almost stirred the army to mutiny.

The stage was set for civil war; Olympias and her army faced Adea and her troops. Olympias marched out garbed as a follower of Dionysus to the haunting beat of a drum. Across the battlefield, Adea appeared outfitted as a Macedonian soldier. Her allegiance-torn troops deserted to Olympias in what became known as “the first war of women.”

Olympias gave Adea and her halfwit husband were given an ultimatum: forced suicide by hemlock, sword or rope. The defiant Adea strangled herself with her own girdle, while the mentally impaired Arrhidaeus was put to the Thracian dagger. They were eventually given a burial by the regent’s son when he came to power.

Adea’s training in the arts of war by Cynnane had always been a powerful argument that she resided in Tomb II, until new ageing evidence killed the theory. But Cynnane was also buried with ceremony at Aegae. Assuming she was born to her Illyrian mother several years after arriving at Philip’s court, Cynnane would fall within the age range of 32 (plus or minus two years) of the Tomb II female bones.

Philip II’s pride in his warlike daughter and his well-developed PR machine would have seen her feted as a warrior and the sources hint at that. What better present than a Scythian quiver for an ‘Amazon’ in the making, or even as a wedding present when Philip paired her with his guardianed nephew Amyntas-Perdiccas.

In the complex intermarriages either side of Alexander’s reign, politicking women took centre stage in Macedon and its soon-fragmenting empire; some even took the never-before-seen title basilissa or ‘queen.’ Alexander’s grandmother, mother, sister, half-sister and her daughter were all self-empowered to survive. And they “could not be reproached either for cowardice or for scrupulousness,” commented Plutarch. The fabled female warriors of legend and their Scythian counterparts were given a run for their money in this unique era of latter-day ‘Amazons.’

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: David Grant has been collaborating with anthropologists in Greece to identity the ‘mystery Amazon of Macedon.’ His new book, Unearthing the Family of Alexander the Great, the Remarkable Discovery of the Royal Tombs of Macedon, is available from Amazon and other online retailers.