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The ancient Greeks thought the Amazons were real people. From earliest times the best informed Greek writers firmly believed that the Amazons were a race of women who hated men and lived without them, who loved to fight battles and perform the deeds of men, who tolerated men during one brief period each year for the definite purpose of propagation. With one or two exceptions (1) this belief persisted well into the Christian era.
Tales of the Amazons are among the oldest legends, their portrayal one of the most favored in Greek art. No figures were more deeply imbedded in the national mind; none are more strange nor more difficult to explain. Yet Amazon legends alone have attracted comparatively little study (2).
Several modern historians have attempted to identify the Amazons with various tribes or classes of people such as the Hittites or armed priestesses. Other writers believe that knowledge for positive conclusions is still lacking. A few dismiss the Amazons as mere fairy-tale creatures. But serious critics of Greek mythology like Bachofen, Weigert, and Turel have emphasized the psychological importance to classical Greek civilization of Amazonian legends whether Amazons actually existed or not.
To show that the Amazons were real people, although their exact race and civilization have not yet been determined, is one of the two purposes of this paper. Examination of cults and legends and archæological evidence indicate that Amazonian people came very likely from regions around the Black Sea as part of the first horse-riding invaders of Asia Minor and Greece during the time of change from the use of bronze to iron. Again and again one notes that horseback riding, the use