Hippolyta: Queen of the Amazons

The Story of Hippolyta

Hippolyta was the queen of the Amazons, a legendary nation of warrior women. She was a daughter of Ares, the god of war. The Amazons were said to live far to the east near the Black Sea, with their capital at Themiscyra on the river Thermodon.

Ares had given Hippolyta a magnificent girdle, a war belt that marked her as the leader of the Amazons. King Eurystheus wanted it for his daughter Admete, so he sent Heracles to fetch it as his ninth labor. Heracles sailed to the land of the Amazons with a band of companions.

Hippolyta came to meet the hero and, in many tellings, agreed to give him the girdle freely. Hera could not bear to see Heracles succeed so easily, so she disguised herself as an Amazon and spread the rumor that the strangers had come to kidnap the queen. The Amazons charged the ship, and in the most common telling Heracles, thinking he had been betrayed, killed Hippolyta and took the girdle.

Other tellings connect her with Theseus, who in some versions joined Heracles on this expedition. Theseus carried off an Amazon queen, called Antiope by some writers and Hippolyta by others, and she bore him a son, Hippolytus. The Amazons then invaded Attica to win her back, and in yet another telling Hippolyta was killed by accident by her sister Penthesilea.

Battles between Greeks and Amazons became a favorite subject of Greek art, carved on the Parthenon in Athens and on many other temples. For the Greeks, the Amazons stood for a fierce, untamed world beyond their own. Hippolyta lived on in later literature too, most famously as the bride of Theseus in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.