In this paper, I reconsider the polysemic figure of the Amazon in Greek art, thought, and society during the period circa 750-400 B.C.E., with particular attention to her role as a gendered figuration of the Other. After briefly tracing the development of Amazon scholarship from Bachofen (1861) to the present, and the evolution of the Amazon legend in Greek literature and art from Homer through the Persian Wars, I turn to the Amazons' most distinctive, yet often overlooked, characteristic: their status as parthenoi or unwed females. Wild and unrestrained, they offered a perfect metaphor for the Persian enemy, enabling the Athenians to relegate the "barbarian" Other to the role of moral and social inferior without diminishing their own achievement. Finally, I consider the steep increase in Amazon pictures on Attic vases circa 450 and their accompanying changes in iconography. I suggest that they may be a response to the immigration crisis of the 450s that prompted Perikles' ultrarestrictive Citizenship Law of 451. If so, it would be the first time that Amazons were used to stand for other Greeks, and this possibility enriches our understanding of the central role played by Athenian racial superiority in the imperalist ideology of the Periklean state.
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© 1995 Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics