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Band of sisters: the Amazon light cavalry.

Article Excerpt
Steven Pressfield. Last of the Amazons. New York: Doubleday, 2002. 396 pp. Map, author's notes. $24.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-385-50098-X.

I've never been an Amazon but Steven Pressfield sure made me feel like one. In Last of the Amazons he schooled me in their ways. He issued me my double-bladed battle-axe. I was handed my bow, my lance, and the reins to my warhorse. Down I rode from the Black Sea steppe to wreak vengeance on the men of Athens. I also felt like a man of Athens. I stood my ground in battle-line. I grasped my shield firmly and held my spear to the front. I waited for the storm of arrows as the female cavalry charged toward me. They screeched their battle cry. The "cry of Amazonia which turns men's spines to squash." Pressfield believes in the guidance of the Muse. The Muse believes in him. His opus extended its cloth wings and wrapped itself around me. His narration galloped and charged across the pages. I was engrossed from cover to cover.

Plutarch, in his biographies, says that Theseus' abduction of Antiope "was the origin of the Amazonian invasion of Athens." He states that their encampment "is certain, and may be confirmed by the names that the places thereabout yet retain." He also says that some of the Amazon dead "were buried there in the place that is to this time called Amazoneum."

In literature, taking possession of a myth and redesigning it is called "mythopoeia." Using Plutarch's writings as the basis for his novel Pressfield screams new life into the legend of the Amazons. He portrays a lifestyle as real as the sky. He explains how "Horse"...

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