Amazons, mythical race of female warriors. The name was popularly understood as ‘breastless’ (maza, ‘breast’) and the story told that they ‘pinched out’ or ‘cauterized’ the right breast so as not to impede their javelin-throwing (Apollod. 2. 5. 8, Strabo 11. 5. 1). No real etymology is known.Amazons exist in order to be fought, and ultimately defeated, by men in an Amazonomachy (‘Amazon-battle’). Already in the Iliad we hear of *Bellerophon killing them in *Lycia (6. 186), their defeat at the river Sangarios (near *Pessinus, 3. 189), and a tomb of Myrrhine outside Troy (2. 814, cf. Strabo 12. 8. 6). In *Arctinus' Aethiopis their Thracian queen, *Penthesilea ‘daughter of Ares’, arrives to help the Trojans, but *Achilles kills her (and *Thersites for alleging Achilles loved her). *Heracles' ninth labour was to fetch the girdle of the Amazon queen, Hippolyte, resulting in another Amazonomachy (Apollod. 4. 16). .Less