The Amazons

In Our Time: Culture

BBC

History

4.6 • 978 Ratings

🗓️ 11 April 2013

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Amazons, a tribe of formidable female warriors first described in Greek literature. They appear in the Homeric epics and were described by Herodotus, and featured prominently in the decoration of Greek vases and public buildings. In later centuries, particularly in the Renaissance, the Amazons became a popular theme of literature and art. After the discovery of the New World, the largest river in South America was named the Amazon, since the warlike tribes inhabiting the river's margins reminded Spanish pioneers of the warriors of classical myth.

With:

Paul Cartledge A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture at Cambridge University

Chiara Franceschini Teaching Fellow at University College London and an Academic Assistant at the Warburg Institute

Caroline Vout University Senior Lecturer in Classics and Fellow and Director of Studies at Christ's College, Cambridge.

Producer: Thomas Morris.

Transcript

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0:44.0	Hello in 1542 a Spanish explorer Francisco D'Oleana
0:50.0	traveled 800 miles down a massive and uncharted river, the largest in South America.
0:55.0	His expedition faced extraordinary dangers and on his return to Spain he told his king, Charles
0:59.4	the 5th, that his man had been attacked by a fearsome tribe of female warriors.
1:04.3	As a result of this incident, the river was named the Amazon,
1:07.6	in reference to an earlier and celebrated race of warlight women.
1:11.1	The Amazons were said to be a nation of female warriors who made
1:14.6	frequent appearances in Greek and Roman mythology and art. According to tradition, they lived
1:19.4	near the Black Sea and were ruled by a queen called Hippolyta.
	...

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