Warrior Women: What Players Might Believe, Ancient History Was Packed with Female Warriors.

Warrior women have become popular in recent times, particularly in film and video games. As hard-as-nails, combat-ready warriors in fantasy images and as tough female heroes in action images, women being sent off to war are romanticized. And even as all that new drama is being acted out, the past itself has a pretty smug choice: one in which women's domestic sphere kept them in, closed them out of war, or declined to count them among the ranks. In reality, however, the truth is much more low-key and infinitely more freeing. And yet, there were more than enough real women warriors throughout the history of the past, their strength, their courage, and their fighting ability standing in the way of any present-day myth.

The Amazon Myth and Its Real-Life Inspirations

One of the most vivid and earliest existing remembrances of women warriors is presented in the form of the ancient Greek myth of the Amazons. They were an imaginary kingdom of horsewomen, war maidens, and archer-warriors. Even though the Amazons themselves existed only in legend, they were modeled after real women warriors. Amazonian-type women were described by the ancient Greeks, Herodotus, and Strabo on the fringes of their world, i.e., in the Sarmatian and Scythian world of the Eurasian steppes. Women there, too, were said to fight and lead armies, not as auxiliaries but as warriors in their own right.

These early descriptions guarantee that the warrior woman was not a fantasy or invention on the part of authors. Instead, they were a reflection of the very real martial cultures of different pre-classical peoples. The myth of the Amazons rested upon the fact that there were women who had an active role in war in some areas of the ancient world.

The Scythians and Sarmatians

Their most famous namesakes among ancient female warriors are likely the Scythians and the Sarmatians, semi-nomadic groups of the Eurasian steppes that flourished from ca. 900 BCE to ca. 300 CE. They were both warrior societies with women inside. Archaeological evidence even goes so far as to the fact that the graves of such warriors were found with arms like swords, spears, and shields, indicating how women warriors not only were but also could have been commanders on the warfront.

In 2000 found a Scythian woman warrior's tomb in the Altai Mountains with an intact arsenal. She is also known as the "Princess of Ukok," and she ended the old theory that older women were passive and had only marriage-brokerage or domestic roles. Being buried with weapons was evidence enough that women had a warrior, violent nature in these societies and that they were not just warriors but leaders as well.

The Sarmatians, who were ruled by the Scythians, is another such example that is quite good. They were great warriors, as the Greek and Roman ancient writers have described them, and even their female warriors fought on the battlefield. Interestingly, even the Roman historian Pliny the Elder has called the Sarmatians a nation where women rode onto the battlefield and fought alongside men.

Female Gladiators of Ancient Rome

When they think of Roman gladiators in ancient times, the image of male gladiators appears first in the mind. But there existed women as well, who fought inside the arenas. Although female gladiators were a much more uncommon sight than male gladiators, they were not beyond the reach of the record. The earliest written evidence for female gladiators is in Roman poet Juvenal, where he states that women had fought in the lethal games in a bid to entertain the crowds. Emperor Septimius Severus also provides some evidence, having seemingly approved games of female gladiators in 200 CE, although they were novelties and not a standard draw.

But the reality itself introduces female gladiators to prove that women were not outside the ambit of military training, though not army-run and more spectacle-based. The women were mostly slaves or captured soldiers who were trained and fought in front of the spectators as a symbol of physical strength and courage defying Roman societal norms.

The Celts and Boudica's Rebellion

A third where women had also had a major role in war was that of the ancient Celts. Celts held lands across much of Europe, Britain and Ireland, France, and the Iberian Peninsula. Possibly the most famous Celtic female warrior myth was that of Iceni queen Boudica, the classic female rebel warrior of ancient Britain. Boudica's 60 or 61 CE uprising against the Roman Empire ranks as one of the best remembered of all British history.

After her husband died, Boudica launched a violent rebellion against Roman rule, burning Roman towns and conquering a series of Roman legions before being eventually defeated. Her participation and action in the war on behalf of her daughters is an example of the kind of role that women can or might take in the conduct of war. The ancient historians, like that of Tacitus, present Boudica as a colossus figure of rebellion, a woman who could not be beaten by valour and willpower and thus made her the greatest superior being of her day.

The Celts also had women warriors who fought alongside the men. The women received the same treatment as the men as they were instructed in how to shoot a bow or how to wear a sword. They became so renowned that even the Romans, their enemies, felt it was proper to write about these women in their war registers.

The Vikings: Women on the Front Line

One of the best-known examples of warrior women, perhaps, are Viking women. Viking sagas and mythology are replete with accounts of women who protected home and family but also fought alongside during raids and battles. While historical records of women fighting in combat with the Vikings are very rare and scattered, it is certain that women in the Viking age enjoyed a wide range of freedom, and many were taught the art of war.

The excavations of recent decades also gave material evidence that warrior women Vikings existed. Archaeologists discovered in a senior 10th-century Viking woman's burial in Birka, Sweden, that the woman was buried with shield, sword, and armor. Such a discovery led some researchers to speculate that some of them were actually engaged in battle, particularly during war, and even commanding men.

Conclusion

The idea that there were no women warriors in the past is one that has been overstated through the centuries and upheld by prehistoric and patriarchal conceptions of gender. For the truth is that history has its well-filled measure of women who fought in war, led armies, and defied social conventions. Whether Amazon warriors, Scythian warriors, Celtic queens, or Viking shieldmaidens, they were living proofs that war was not men's work. They are testimonials to the braveness, strength, and determination of women throughout history, denying the notion that warriors were males. Rather, it was not a creature of the modern age or a myth from video games, but the legacy of the ancient female warriors must be recalled and celebrated.