Slavic Warrior Women, pt. 8: Tomyris

Link to full dissertation, Amazons, Shieldmaidens, and Daring Polianitsy: Slavic Warrior Women in Medieval Literature and Folklore: https://libraetd.lib.virginia.edu/public_view/r207tq787

Time for Slavic Warrior women, part 8! Today we’ll discuss Tomyris, the queen of the Massagetae (one of the nomadic steppe tribes that fell under the Scythian umbrella). One of these days—whenever I finish writing the current series I’ve got going on—I’d love to turn her biography into a historical fantasy novel. There is so very much potential there. Hopefully no one beats me to it.

While the Amazons’ narratives underwent significant revision and mythologization over the centuries between occurrence and record, if they indeed occurred at all, the next two queens I discuss are rooted firmly in history, not myth. Tomyris ruled over a Scythian tribe known as the Massagetae during the sixth century _BCE. The Massagetae occupied the lands east of the Caspian Sea, roughly correlating to present day Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, near the southern border of Scythian-held territory at the time.^[1] During the Renaissance, she became a popular subject of painters like Peter Paul Rubens, who devoted several works to her in the seventeenth century. Her artistic portrayals earned her a position in the Power of Women topos, which explored gender hierarchies by depicting encounters of centuries past between powerful women and the most powerful of men.^[2] Despite her inclusion in this art movement of the medieval and Renaissance ages, Tomyris is still little known to the larger world; however, she remains such an important figure to the present-day countries corresponding to the territory she once ruled that Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have adopted her as a national hero, complete with monuments in major cities as well as numerous legends ascribed to her. Fictional though some of those legends may be, Tomyris was a real ruler of a real people, and she reigned over a substantial territory at a time when to most civilizations, the notion of female leadership was preposterous.

Multiple ancient authors mention Tomyris, including Polyaenus, Diodorus, and Strabo, but Herodotus provides one of the earliest and most detailed accounts of her reign. According to Herodotus, in the sixth century _BCE Tomyris took control of the Massagetae following the death of her husband, who, in a stark reversal of the usual practice, remains unnamed; normally it is the women who remain nameless, described only in relation to their male kin, if mentioned at all. Upon Tomyris’s ascension to power, suitors wishing to acquire her kingdom bombard her with marriage proposals. Most prominent of the suitors is Cyrus the Great, the emperor of Persia and progenitor of the Achaemenid dynasty. Cyrus sends emissaries to Tomyris, but she knows his eye is on conquest rather than marriage, and so she refuses to entertain them. Instead, she returns the emissaries to their emperor with a clear message of rejection. To paraphrase Herodotus’s account of her pointed reply: You rule your kingdom, and I’ll rule mine.^[3]

Cyrus, unable to swallow such a response yet upholding his pretense of courtship, leads his armies into Massagetae territory across the river Araxes, now known as the Volga, all the while plotting with his advisors how best to absorb her tribe as he had so many others.^[4] Most of his advisors recommend he face the Massagetae directly in open battle, but one advisor—Croesus the Lydian—proposes a ruse. Croesus suggests that Cyrus lure the Massagetae with a feast left in a poorly guarded camp, ply them with strong wine, and only once they are deep in a drunken stupor, descend upon them with elite troops.^[5] As one of the affiliated Scythian tribes, the Massagetae were known to drink fermented mare’s milk, but they were unused to stronger alcohols.^[6] Thus, the portion of Tomyris’s army that she sends to confront Cyrus’s invasion, led by her son Spargapises, falls for the ruse. The returning Persians slaughter the drunken warriors and take her son captive. Spargapises, ashamed at his failure, commits suicide.

Despite grieving the loss of her son and nearly a third of her army, Tomyris offers Cyrus one last chance at diplomacy. She sends a messenger with instructions that if all the Persian forces depart her lands immediately, she will let them live; remain, and she will see to it personally that the bloodthirsty emperor drinks his fill.^[7] Still confident in their superiority over the milk-drinking, woman-ruled barbarians, Cyrus and his army continue their march through Massagetae territory. Thus, Tomyris gathers her remaining cavalry and faces the Persians on the battlefield. After a prolonged battle, the Massagetae eventually win the day. Tomyris deposits the fallen emperor’s severed head in a bag of human blood and returns it to the Persians. As promised, she had quenched his thirst at last.^[8]

It is noteworthy that, while the assumption of later authors is that queens only ruled as regents for underage sons or in the absence of a male heir, Tomyris’s son Spargapises is an adult. He is old enough to be a general in her army, so we can assume he is likewise old enough to rule. However, Tomyris, not her grown son, is the leader of the Massagetae. This detail highlights not only the equality of the sexes in Scythian societies, but also the aptitude Tomyris must have possessed as a ruler. Her position at the head of the Massagetae despite the existence of what the Greeks and Romans would have considered a better qualified—i.e., male—candidate further indicates that, to the Scythians, gender did not matter nearly so much as ability.

Besides the war with Persia, little is mentioned of Tomyris’s reign. Furthermore, outside of Central Asia, Tomyris remains relatively unknown in comparison to the emperor she defeated. Cyrus is discussed at length not only in many Ancient Greco-Roman sources, but also sources ranging from the Babylonian Chronicles and the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Bible and Quran. He is commonly known even today as Cyrus the Great, and his conquests are widely taught in world history courses. As for the warrior queen who defeated him, beyond the memory of her geographic and cultural descendants in Central Asia and renaissance art circles, she has been relegated to a footnote. Many accounts of Cyrus’s final battle do not even mention that the opposing force was led by a woman, let alone provide that woman’s name.^[9] Tomyris’s exclusion from the dominant narrative is hardly an isolated phenomenon. Women of extraordinary achievements have long been overlooked by mainstream history, and Tomyris is no different.^[10]

That’s it for Tomyris. Next installment, we’ll wrap up our discussion of warrior women of antiquity with the narrative of a lesser known Scythian queen, Amage.

Citations:

[1] Kostas Deligiorgis, “Tomyris, Queen of the Massagetes: A Mystery in Herodotus’s History,” Anistoriton Journal 14 (2014-2015): 2.

[2] Susan L. Smith, The Power of Women: A Topos in Medieval Art and Literature (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995): 2.

[3] “ὦ βασιλεῦ Μήδων, παῦσαι σπεύδων τὰ σπεύδεις: οὐ γὰρ ἂν εἰδείης εἴ τοι ἐς καιρὸν ἔσται ταῦτα τελεόμενα: παυσάμενος δὲ βασίλευε τῶν σεωυτοῦ, καὶ ἡμέας ἀνέχευ ὁρέων ἄρχοντας τῶν περ ἄρχομεν.” Herodotus, Historíai, 1.206.1.

[4] Minns, Scythians and Greeks, 44.

[5] Herodotus, Historíai, 1.207.5.

[6] Mayor, Amazons: Lives & Legends, 146.

[7] “εἰ δὲ ταῦτα οὐ ποιήσεις, ἥλιον ἐπόμνυμί τοι τὸν Μασσαγετέων δεσπότην, ἦ μέν σε ἐγὼ καὶ ἄπληστον ἐόντα αἵματος κορέσω.” Herodotus, Historíai, 1.212.3.

[8] Herodotus, Historíai, 1.214.4 - 1.214.5.

[9] Abetekov and Yusupov, “Ancient Iranian Nomads,” 25.

[10] Cameron, Feminism: Brief Introduction, 96.