Message #2261

[Isis]

The Amazons in Atlantis
 
(Gorgon)
 

Diodorus, (340BC - ?) a scholar/historian of ancient Greece wrote of the origins of the Amazons as dating back to the ancient time of Atlantis. In his account, the Amazons lived in western Libya, the land of civilized people, and from where the gods came. According to Diodorus, the Amazon's culture and customs were the exact opposite to that of normal day Greece (and in Atlantis). It was the men who worked in the domestic sphere of life, while the women partook of politics, the art of war, and who were required to serve in the army for several years during their adolescence. Diodorus states that only after a woman had finished her time within the army was she allowed procreative liberty. When a child was born, the men took care of the children, who depending on sex were treated in differing ways. While a boy would earn a mundane and domestic existence, the girls were subject to a tradition of breast demarcation, where either the right or left breast was seared. According to Diodorus this demarcation was "For they thought that the breasts, as they might not develop at the time of maturity; for they thought that the breasts, as they stood out from the body, were no small hindrance in warfare; and in fact it is because they have been deprived of their breasts that they are called by the Greeks Amazons."

The tale of Atlantis thus continues with the queen of the Amazons, Myrina, setting out to lay siege on Atlantis. The Amazons took the city of Cerne in Atlantis, and the Atlantians bowed to their rule (with some resistance). After the Amazons took over they were expected to kill the Gorgons from the west who were constantly attacking Atlantis. The Gorgons were a group of medusa like creatures. Before the Amazons battled the Gorgons, there was an uprising in a city where half of the Amazons were killed by their own swords while they slept, by the native peoples. Still unrelenting, the Amazons went up against the Gorgons and only half won. Eventually it took Perseus to finish off the Gorgons.