Scholars of myth in antiquity – particularly those examining gender, cultural identity and the dynamics of heroic narrative – have long recognised the Amazons as an entity that makes Greek anxieties about women, power and alterity distinctly legible. B.’s volume enters this rich and often polarised field with a study both expansive in scope and attentive to the subtleties of the ancient evidence. Rather than rehearsing the familiar emphasis on the Amazons’ martial prowess, B. asks why a male-dominated society developed such a persistent fascination with powerful women and, crucially, what the Greeks understood the Amazons to signify. His overarching aim is to explore ‘the remarkable range of talents and achievements that Greeks conferred’ on these figures (p. ix), and in doing so he reframes Amazonian myth as a cultural arena extending well beyond the battlefield.
B. situates his project against a background of modern anglophone scholarship that he characterises as idiosyncratic: either devoted to reconstructing historical Amazons (citing A. Mayor, The Amazons [2014] and J. Man, Amazons [2018] as key examples) or focused on interpretative parallels between Amazons and Persians. His overview would be enriched by fuller engagement with the substantial body of scholarship on Amazon–Persian analogies – such as H. Yang, ‘Orientalism in the Ancient World’, Bulletin of the Institute for Mediterranean Studies 5 (2007), and M. Meeder ‘Inconvenient Women’, Liberal Art Program, Graduate Capstone Project, Rutgers University (2008), 15–26 –, but his framing nonetheless clarifies the critical space his study inhabits: a synthetic cultural account of Amazons as Greeks imagined them. The book is organised thematically, moving from warfare (Chapter 2), motherhood (Chapter 3) and eroticised violence (Chapter 4) to colonialism and exoticism (Chapter 5), cultural divergence (Chapter 6), city-founding and religion (Chapter 7), Athenian visual propaganda (Chapter 8), ethnographic thinking (Chapter 9) and sexuality (Chapter 10). This structure enables B. to develop the argument with clarity, showing how modern scholarship’s ‘over-concern with [the Amazons’] abilities in battle at the expense of their wider qualities and fundamental significance for the Greeks at all levels’ has led us to ‘routinely underestimate them’ (p. 12). By tracing these themes B. demonstrates that the Greeks attributed to the Amazons not only military prowess but also intelligence, political acumen and religious authority.
Two themes stand out as especially illuminating. The first is B.’s discussion of war and desire, where he situates Amazonomachies (Greek battles with the Amazons) within a broader constellation of narratives about eroticised conflict. Drawing on literary texts (Pindar, Proclus, Quintus of Smyrna), public buildings in Corinth and Aegina, and private art (Athenian vase painting), he highlights the deep entanglement between violence and erotic attraction in Greek representations of the Amazons (pp. 89–101). His comparison of Helen of Troy and the Amazons (pp. 93–5) is particularly compelling: by aligning the lethal beauty of Helen with the formidable allure of the Amazons, B. shows that both figures operate within a shared mythopoetic logic in which femininity is simultaneously desirable and destabilising. The myth of Achilles and Penthesilea receives a nuanced reading along these lines, as B. reveals how Greek narratives used this pairing to negotiate cultural anxieties surrounding gender, agency and the volatile intersections of sex and war (p. 95). This theme enriches current scholarly conversations on gender in antiquity, reminding readers that Amazon figures allowed the Greeks to imagine – and to contain – the repercussions of unconstrained female autonomy.
Equally valuable is B.’s analysis of the Amazons as city-founders, which combines close readings of Strabo and Pliny with numismatic evidence from Asia Minor. The inclusion of silver and bronze coinage, some reproduced in high-quality plates, allows readers to engage directly with the material culture underpinning his argument. B. notes that imperial-period coins depicting Amazons alongside reigning emperors frequently omit traditional Amazonian attributes such as distinctive clothing or weaponry (p. 186). He interprets this as signalling a transition towards Graeco-Roman civic identities, thereby complicating notions of Amazon alterity and underscoring their capacity for political diplomacy (pp. 175–87). B. further brings clarity to the foundational legends of several major cities – including Smyrna, Cyme and Ephesus – traditionally credited in ancient sources to Amazon leaders. By drawing together literary references and archaeological evidence, he demonstrates that these foundation narratives highlight the Amazons’ association with religious innovation, from the erection of fountains and springs to the establishment of sanctuaries and ritual dances for Greek deities such as Artemis. This treatment adds welcome nuance to characterisations foregrounding Amazon warfare at the expense of their wider roles, showing instead how deeply they were woven into the cultural and cultic landscapes of the ancient Mediterranean.
B.’s major strengths lie in the breadth of ancient material he engages with and the originality of his interpretative readings. He moves confidently between literary texts, vase images, monumental architecture and numismatics, assembling a multi-dimensional picture of the Amazons that is both rigorous and accessible. His willingness to expand the discussion beyond warfare – to astronomy and weaving (pp. 118–21) as well as city-building, diplomacy and religious leadership (pp. 173–89) – results in a more robust understanding of the Amazon figure than is typically offered in modern scholarship. The prose throughout is clear and engaging, making the book well suited to both students and specialists; the early section on modern misconceptions about Amazons (pp. 17–29) provides a particularly useful introduction for readers approaching the topic for the first time.
There remain areas where further engagement could open productive avenues for discussion. Given the book’s interest in gendered behaviour and socio-cultural norms, readers might expect a fuller consideration of Amazonian sexuality and erotic identity. B. rightly notes the absence of explicit ancient evidence for same-sex relationships among Amazons (p. 17). Nevertheless, recent scholarship drawing on queer-theoretical approaches to ancient myth suggests that the Amazon narrative remains especially receptive to non-normative readings, highlighting gender transgression and erotic fluidity (see W.D. Penrose, ‘The Appeal of the Amazons’, Journal of Lesbian Studies 28 [2024], 205–32). Such frameworks could have provided additional interpretative depth to aspects of B.’s argument. Likewise, when B. mentions that both Amazons and Greek girls engaged in communal dancing (p. 26), more concrete examples – such as the arktoi (‘bear-girls’) ritual at Brauron, in which young girls performed structured dances as part of their transition to adulthood and ritual service to Artemis – could further situate Amazonian ritual movement within broader Greek patterns of female adolescence and virginity rites. These points, however, do not detract from the book’s overall achievement; rather, they suggest fertile paths for future inquiry.
In its contribution to scholarship, the book presents a clear and well-balanced study within a field often divided between historicist reconstruction and broader cultural analysis. While B. positions himself as offering an alternative narrative to Mayor’s influential work, I find that his approach occasionally aligns with her insights: Mayor likewise foregrounds the Amazons’ intelligence and extraordinary achievements, deliberately countering reductive treatments in earlier scholarship (Mayor [2014], pp. 26–9). I posit that Mayor’s ethnoarchaeological perspective and B.’s Greek-focused lens can be read in productive dialogue, with each approach illuminating different dimensions of the Amazon figure. Together, they underscore the richness, complexity and multifaceted significance of the network of associations of the term ‘Amazon’ across temporal, geographic and interpretative contexts.
Future research can build upon the frameworks B. establishes here. His socio-cultural approach invites extension into Roman contexts – for instance, by analysing how Roman narratives of Amazons might reflect and reinforce imperial ideologies of duty, religious devotion and loyalty to the state as expressed in Latin literary sources. Moreover, his observations are highly relevant to reception studies – for example, the complex interplay of desire, violence and agency in his reading of Penthesilea and Achilles provides a productive lens for analysing how works such as Kleist’s Penthesilea destabilise ancient dynamics by granting the Amazon queen a transgressive, destructive agency absent in classical versions. In sum, the volume offers a nuanced and compelling reappraisal of the Amazons, providing a rich foundation for the ongoing study of ancient myth-making.
