Warrior Women in History and Hollywood

The image of the warrior woman has become more and more pervasive in Hollywood over the past two decades, until now it is commonplace for a hit action movie to star a female protagonist or, at the very least, a tough female sidekick to the male hero. Many people view these portrayals as a purely modern fiction, a product of the feminist movement combined with male fantasy. Particularly when presented in a historical setting rather than science fiction or pure fantasy, this image is often treated as a pleasant invention at best and unforgivable revisionism at worst. Is there any truth to the image of women fighting on ancient and medieval battlefields?

The Greeks didn’t just leave us records of the Amazons; they had their own fighting women. Around 300 BC, Amastris conquered four settlements to create her own city-state, named for herself. Several Spartan princesses, including Arachidamia, even led groups of female troops into battle in the 3rd century BC. The wife of Roman Emperor Lucius Vitellius, named Triaria, accompanied him into battle dressed as a knight. There is also widespread evidence for the existence of female gladiators in the ancient Roman arena. Roman forces were badly beaten by the armies of Queen Septimia Zenobia, which she led on horseback wearing full armor.

The Romans had previously encountered resistance in the form of Queen Boudicca of the Iceni, who in Celtic Britain drove the Roman forces almost entirely off the island, including burning London. The Celts at one point attempted to bar the participation of women in combat by passing an edict against it in 590 AD. The women refused to comply, and the edict proved unenforceable. Women in positions of military power were so common in Celtic lands that captives brought to Rome at first assumed the Emperor’s wife was the ruler.