Troy had fallen. That once noble city, Pram's glory and the jewel of Troas, would no longer sing her proud songs under the gaze of Mt. Ida. Betrayed by a wooden gift, the invention of the cunning Odysseus, she now lay ashen and desolate, her spirit and her people vanquished by ten years of war and Greek treachery, bringing death and destruction upon all.
I see them before me now, like specters arisen from the dead, these fallen warriors both Trojan and Hellene alike, in their aspect resplendent like gods, yet doomed to mortal weakness. Menelaus, Paris, Agamemnon, Aeneas, Deïphobus, Ajax, and the greatest of these, the valiant Hector and the haughty Achilles, stand yet opposed, their great shields held high and their spears anxious to draw blood. I see too the image of my ancestor, three generations now removed, the brave Penthesileia, queen of the Amazons, whose sword cut down the Greek host like a scythe separates wheat from the chaff. I see her now as she faces Achilles, whose life was never in jeopardy while Paris' bow remained unstrung, her beautiful face hidden to her enemy but her intent clear, challenging the mighty warrior to single combat and brought low by him with a spear thrust to her unprotected neck.
Behold Amazons! Daughters of Artemis and Ares, goddess of the hunt and god of War! In remembrance of Hippolyta, our ancient queen, of pure Scythian blood, founder of Palus Maeotis, the birthplace of our race, it is I Xanthippe who records these events for those who will come after me. We who now make Themiscyra our home on the banks of the swift-flowing Thermodon, I beseech you by the blood of our sisters who lay buried in the earth in far away Troy, do not despair; for to despair is to turn our backs on the gods.
Our proud and noble race shall endure. This I have read in the omens of the sky and of the earth and of the water. Soon the ancient prophecy will be fulfilled, and the name of the Amazons will become one with the immortal gods. I, Xanthippe, daughter of Andromache, high priestess of Artemis and keeper of the sacred texts, swear this to be true, or else may death be swift upon me.
Xanthippe of Themiscyra,
the
Histories
************
Chilon stood at the prow of the merchant vessel, a single-mast, thirty-oared ship owned and operated by a family friend, a rich Athenian merchant named Polyphemus, as it ploughed its way through the rough seas of the eastern Aegean on its way to Megara, where his future bride, and third cousin on his distaff side, awaited him. The arrangement to book passage had been made months earlier, and had cost Chilon a very handsome price, for despite Megara's rich and flourishing economy, and the propitious omens offered by the Athenian soothsayers promising a safe voyage, Polyphemus distrusted the unpredictable and often violent weather that greeted those wary ships that entered the Hellespont, many of which had met their doom at the bottom of her turbulent waters. As a result, he had only made the journey once in all his years at sea. But the huge sum of money Chilon had paid him for the trip, and something in the noble demeanor of Chilon himself, compelled him to stir up his courage. And as the lure of profit was never far from Polyphemus' mind, he diligently filled the hold of his ship with a plentiful supply of tradable goods, hopeful of amassing a substantial return for his new-found boldness to confront the fickle waters of the Propontis.
Upon the death of Chilon's father, his mother Aglaia decided to return with her son to Athens, her ancestral home. It was her wish that she remain in the city while her son made the journey to Megara, thereupon to return to Athens with his new bride once the affairs of marriage had been concluded. Chilon was sorry to leave her behind, but she was still grieving for her dead husband and was not fit to make the long journey. Demagetus, Chilon's father, was a proud man and descended from a noble lineage; his father being Agamemnon, King of Mycenae and his uncle Menelaus, King of Sparta, whose beautiful wife, Helen, had been abducted by the villain Paris, who took her to Troy and to her ruin.
Aglaia had once been regarded as the most beautiful woman in Greece, and when Damagetus visited Athens on a diplomatic mission, he met and fell in love with her, taking her back to Sparta with him when peace negotiations between the two great city states had been settled. Chilon had been born a year later and grew into one of the greatest warriors Sparta had ever produced, achieving great fame in the war against Corinth at only seventeen years old when he broke the lines of the Corinthian phalanx by using several small units of cavalry to attack the enemy from its unprotected rear.
But Chilon was also a man of great intellect. Even as a youth he would debate with the elders of the city on such varied topics as war, philosophy, mathematics, and music. Sparta's two kings indulged the young man and his questioning mind because it amused them, but many others saw him as being overly influenced by his Athenian mother, who sought to instill in her son a love for all things philosophical. To the Spartans he was something of an anomaly; a proud and fearsome warrior but also a man of great erudition, insight, and sensitivity; the latter quality not usually recognized by the Spartans as a particularly manly virtue. Yet none dared openly ridicule him on this account, since his noble bearing and great virtue precluded any attempt at such vulgar admonishments. It did not hurt that he was also blessed with a face that, in its masculine incarnation, mirrored his mother's unsurpassed beauty; large almond eyes, high cheekbones, a small, aquiline nose, and a smile that could melt the heart of the most cold-hearted person. The long, luxuriant, auburn hair which framed this perfect face created an image of beauty whose transcendence made it seem to others that he must be the male embodiment of Aphrodite herself.
There had been some speculation that his father's death had been due to slow poisoning, administered by a rival for a grievance never redressed. The speculation was not altogether unfounded since Damagetus had many enemies amongst the nobility. His rash, often impetuous, behavior led him to openly insult those men whose physical and moral lassitude he could not countenance. And sometimes his imperiousness involved him in physical altercations with the kings' highest advisors, some of whom were above him in station. He had even threatened Lysander, a cousin and favorite of king Orestes, with death because the outspoken nobleman had dared to disparage Damagetus' feebly wrought plan to invade a troublesome neighboring city. Upon hearing of this, Orestes flew into a rage, forbidding Damagetus to set foot in the council chamber until he made a formal apology to Lysander, which he refused to do. In light of these circumstances, Aglaia advised her husband to act cautiously and avoid any confrontations that might place him and his family at risk. Wisely, he took his wife's advice to heart and stayed clear of Lysander and his powerful faction. But the damage had already been done. Out of favor with Orestes and never on good terms with the younger king, Dion, Damagetus now saw himself as being ill-favored in the eyes of his peers. The only thing that kept him from being completely alienated from his people was the love they felt toward Chilon, whose great deeds in war had placed him in an exalted status, and whom they regarded as favored by the gods.
It had taken almost seven full days to navigate the Aegean, travelling in a northeast direction toward the western coast of the island of Lesbos where they stopped for provisions, and then further north, skirting the coast of the small island of Tenedos, past the ancient ruins of Troy and into the Hellespont, a narrow straight that separated the Thracian Chersonesus on the west from the mainland of Asia Minor. Megara yet lay many leagues to the north on the eastern coast of Thrace, and the great ship would have to navigate the unpredictable waters of the Propontis, which were sometimes beset by unexpected and violent storms. Megara was situated on a promontory near the mouth of the Bosporus, a very narrow straight that connected the Propontis with the Black Sea and the barbaric peoples that lived beyond.
Chilon had often heard tales of a female warrior race that supposedly lived on the shores of the Black Sea, and how these women, for all intents and purposes the female equivalent of the warlike Spartans, had fought at the battle of Troy on the side of the Trojans, killing many Greeks in their quest for glory. He dismissed these tales as mere fabrications and laughed when the city elders, some of whom had fought at Troy, tried to convince him that this race called Amazons did indeed exist. To him these stories were the product of fanciful imaginings resulting from an overindulgence of wine, and many of the more educated of his people invariably felt as he did. It mattered little that these ancient war veterans had based their story upon actual empirical observation; for it was well known that men of such advanced years loved to tell tall tales and derived a perverse sense of enjoyment from the telling of them. Yet, the idea of a female warrior race intrigued him. And as he stood grasping the wooden rail of the ship, the fine mist of the early morning fog forming tiny droplets on his crimson Spartan cloak, he turned his eyes toward the vague stretch of land that lay to the northeast, that part of the world that lay on the southernmost shore of the Black Sea, and wondered if the ancient warrior's wild accounts of the mythical Amazons might indeed be true.
But he had little time now to think about such things. His bride, an eighteen-year-old, blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty whose name was Tethys, his distant cousin, was soon to be his wife, and all his thoughts were centered upon her. In fact, he was so preoccupied with her that he had barely slept much at all on the journey. His mother and father had arranged the marriage long ago, when the two were still children, having met only once in Athens when Chilon was only eleven years old. His mother had often reminded him that when the two children first met, the gods must have blessed their union, for the two of them became hopelessly attached to each other, happily spending each day of their month-long visit in each other's company.
He wondered what his future bride must look like now. That she would be beautiful he had no doubt. But what if the two of them were no longer enamored of each other the way they had been when they were children? After all, they had not seen each other in almost nine years. And more importantly, what kind of a person was she? Was she loving and kind and dutiful as a woman should be? Would she always show deference to her husband and obey him in all things? Would she be happy to live in Sparta, where the women did not enjoy the same freedoms they did in Megara, or even Athens for that matter? All these questions ran through his mind as the first rays of the morning sun danced playfully upon the waves.
"Good morning to you, friend Chilon," the shipmaster said cheerfully as he patted the young man on the back. "It seems Poseidon has blessed us with good weather this day."
Polyphemus inhaled the morning air into his lungs and rubbed his chest vigorously. Like Chilon, he was a tall man for an Athenian, standing just over six feet in height. He was not much older than thirty, and his thin, agile body had been hardened by a life spent at sea, which he called his home. This vessel, the Helios, named after the god of the sun, was one of many such ships owned by him, an inheritance from his seafaring father.
"Are the men still asleep?" Chilon asked.
"Yes, but they won't be for long. The winds will soon die down and we will need to put the ship to oar."
"How do you know that?"
"Every sailor who has sailed these waters knows that my friend. My father used to make the voyage several times a year, but I'm afraid I'm not as courageous as he was. He told me that the weather in this part of the world could change very quickly, and without warning."
"Then he knew the Propontis well."
Polyphemus smiled. "As well as any man can know the sea. If the gods are with us, then the winds will be favorable. If not, we might be in for a rough time."
The sun was beginning to rise in the eastern sky and along with it the mist began to dissipate, revealing the northern coastline in finer detail.
"What is that land called?" Chilon asked, pointing to a prominent mountain range off to the east.
"Those are the Caucasus mountains. It is the land of Colchis, a very old and mysterious country. I have never been there, but it is said that Jason and his Argonauts once visited that kingdom to reclaim the Golden Fleece."
"But that's just a myth."
"Many myths are shrouded in truth," Polyphemus replied solemnly.
"I suppose you'll be telling me that there is some truth to the legend of the Amazons too."
"You don't believe they exist?"
"No. Do you?"
