Last of the Amazon

300 Pages·2010·1.37 MB·English

by  Pressfield Steven

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STEVEN PRESSFIELD
AST OF THE AMAZONS
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STEVEN PRESSFIELD
AST OF THE AMAZONS
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AST OF THE AMAZONS
Title Page
D O U B L E D A Y
NEW YORK
LONDON
TORONTO
SYDNEY
AUCKLAND
STEVEN
PRESSFIELD
STEVEN PRESSFIELD
2
Contents
Title Page
1
Contents 2
Dedication 5
Quotes 6
BOOK ONE: MOTHER BONES
7
CHAPTER 1: A TAME AMAZON
8
CHAPTER 2: ELEUTHERA MEANS FREEDOM
22
CHAPTER 3: HANDSOME DAMON
31
CHAPTER 4: DAUGHTERS OF THE HORSE
38
BOOK TWO: THE RIVER OF HELL
50
CHAPTER 5: PHALANXES OF IRON
51
CHAPTER 6: A TRANSIT TO THE UNDERWORLD
58
CHAPTER 7: EUROPA
70
BOOK THREE: AMAZON LOVE
77
CHAPTER 8: A GATHERING OF THE CLANS
78
BOOK FOUR: THE AMAZON SEA
87
CHAPTER 9: A PRINCE OF ATTICA
88
CHAPTER 10: THE BIRTH OF DEMOCRACY
96
CHAPTER 11: BEYOND THE KEN OF GOD
101
CHAPTER 12: THE DERANGEMENT OF EROS
110
CHAPTER 13: THE EQUESTRIAN SQUARE
116
CHAPTER 14: A DUEL OF HONOR
120
CHAPTER 15: REFLECTIONS IN GOD'S MIRROR 140
BOOK FIVE: THE WILD LANDS
148
CHAPTER 16: OUR SEA
149
CHAPTER 17: MASSACRE AT THE PARCHED HILLS 159
BOOK SIX: THE RAPE OF ANTIOPE
173
CHAPTER 18: THE OVERTHROW OF ANTIOPE
174
CHAPTER 19: ACROSS THE FRONTIER OF LOVE 187
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CHAPTER 20: THE WILES OF THE GREEKS
194
CHAPTER 21: AMAZONS AND ALLIES
198
BOOK SEVEN: ATHENS
219
CHAPTER 22: THE USES OF ECSTASY
220
CHAPTER 23: STARFISH AND SEA HORSES
231
BOOK EIGHT: SISTERS IN ARMS
243
CHAPTER 24: AN ARMY OF CARPENTERS
244
CHAPTER 25: THE MUSICIAN'S REPORT
258
CHAPTER 26: NIGHTS AND DAYS
267
BOOK NINE: UNDER SIEGE
278
CHAPTER 27: THE TOLL OF VICTORY
279
CHAPTER 28: A TRIAL OF AEDOR
298
BOOK TEN: IN LOVE AND WAR
309
CHAPTER 29: RATS
310
CHAPTER 30: AT THE THRESHOLD OF VICTORY 316
CHAPTER 31: THE WATCH COMMANDER'S TOWER 320
BOOK ELEVEN: THE BATTLE
324
CHAPTER 32: THE BATTLE, MORNING
325
CHAPTER 33: THE ARMING OF ANTIOPE
336
CHAPTER 34: AGONY OF ANTIOPE
345
BOOK TWELVE: LAST OF THE AMAZONS
363
CHAPTER 35: THE HOUSE OF OATHS
364
CHAPTER 36: THE COMPLICITY OF THE GODS
370
CHAPTER 37: A NEW ORDER
373
CHAPTER 38: PRINCES OF THE PLAINS
377
CHAPTER 39: SPAWN OF THE DARKNESS
382
CHAPTER 40: AN AMAZON
389
CHAPTER 41: THE IRON AND THE MOON
393
CHAPTER 42: ELEUTHERA AND THESEUS
396
CHAPTER 43: PASSENGERS
402
CHAPTER 44: AN ACT OF STATESMANSHIP
408
CHAPTER 45: A RITE OF REMEMBRANCE
414
CHAPTER 46: AMAZONEUM
417
AUTHOR'S NOTES
422
ON THE HISTORICAL REALITY OF THE AMAZONS 423
A NOTE ON SPELLING
425
SPECIAL THANKS
426
ALSO BY STEVEN PRESSFIELD
427
COPYRIGHT PAGE
428
STEVEN PRESSFIELD
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AST OF THE AMAZONS
Dedication
For Lesley
STEVEN PRESSFIELD
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Quotes
PRIAM: Once before now I travelled to Phrygia where the vines
grow, and there I saw a host of Phrygian men with their quick
horses…. I too was numbered among them on the day when the
Amazons came, women the equal of men.
—Homer, The Iliad
This was the origin of the Amazonian invasion of Athens, which would seem to
have been no slight or womanish enterprise. For it is impossible that the
Amazons should have placed their camp in the very city, and joined battle close
by the pnyx unless, having first conquered the country around about, they had
thus with impunity advanced to the city. That they encamped there is certain,
and may be confirmed by the names that the places thereabout yet retain, and the
graves and monuments of those that fell in the battle. . . . For indeed we are also
told that [a number] of the Amazons [who] died were buried there in the place
that is to this time called Amazoneum.
—Plutarch, Life of Theseus
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BOOK ONE: MOTHER BONES
BOOK ONE
MOTHER BONES
STEVEN PRESSFIELD
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CHAPTER 1: A TAME AMAZON
I
A TAME AMAZON
When I was a girl I had a nurse who was a tame Amazon. Of course such
expression is a misnomer, as one of that race may be domesticated no more than
an eagle or a she-wolf. Selene however (this was her name, “Moon”) had been
detached at age nine from her skyle—the words for “battalion” and “family”
being the same in the Amazon tongue—and sent to dwell among civilized
society, at Sinope on the Black Sea, and had thus become conversant with
settlement ways. She could not endure such confinement however; at age twelve
she stole a horse and weapons and fled home to the Wild Lands. As a grown
warrior Selene fought at Thorn Hill against the Trojans and Dardanians, at
Chalcedon against the Rhipaean Scyths, and at the Halys against the fifty sons of
Admetus. She could speak Greek and served both as adjutant and envoy, as well
as commanding in the hippotoxotai, the fabled Corps of Mounted Archers. She
held the rank of wing captain in the Great Battle of Athens, in which Theseus
and his allies of the Twelve States, after months of fighting, at last beat back the
army of women.
Selene surrendered shield and bridle at the pass between Parnes and Cithaeron,
where the graves of Amazons may still be seen, alongside her lover Eleuthera,
“Freedom,” who bore numerous 9
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wounds, and to secure whose ransom and release Selene yielded up her own
liberty. Selene was never shackled or stockaded in my father's service, but held
by her word alone, and so served honorably, governing my sister, Europa, and
me until my sister's fourteenth (and my eleventh) year.
You eldest of my daughters reckon the bloodbath that transpired at that season.
Each year I recount the tale on this eve of the festival of the Boedromia, beneath
that horns-skyward crescent called by men an Amazon moon. None of male sex,
father, brother, husband, or son, may learn this chronicle now or ever, nor any
fraction, so have we all sworn, even you youngest, donating our blood in the
Iron Rite of Ares. Repeat with me now: who abjures this vow shall perish at our
hands, so pledge we all. Arise now, children. You youngest, take the hands of
your sisters and follow me, Mother Bones, into the outer court. None will disturb
us here. Double your overcloaks and set them in a ring upon the earth. The night
is warm. Nestle at one another's sides, resting your backs against the walls or
trees. There. Let us form the Moon Crescent whose name is labrys, “double
axe,” while I at its apex recite our lore. Listen well, daughters. Each verse I
narrate, sear into memory. You eldest, who have heard the tale each autumn as
you grew, accept this charge: if I alter so much as one stanza, bring me to book
upon it, for our incantation wants naught of legend but truth alone. And when
you come to impart this history to your own daughters, recall this commission