by Sam Yelton Egee (c. 1200 BCE) From the Greek Aegea.[1] Although traditionally placed by Herodotus and others in the vicinity of the Black Sea, there are variations of the Amazon myth which located the tribe of female warriors in Scythia and in northern Africa.[2] Diodorus Siculus records a story of a warrior queen leading…
Tag Archive for Africa
Arete
by Eliana Greenberg and Koren Whipp Arete of Cyrene (late 5th or early 4th C. BCE)[1] Philosopher and teacher in Cyrene, Cyrene was founded around 630 BCE by Greek colonists from Thera, and it became an important cultural mecca known for academic pursuits, and home to the Cyrenaic school of philosophy, founded by Arete’s father, Aristippus.…
Aretaphila
by Koren Whipp Aretaphila of Cyrene (1st C BCE) lived in the reign of Mithridates VI, King of Pontus and Armenia Minor. She was the daughter of Aeglator and wife of Phᴂdimus, both noblemen.[1] Nicocrates, a tyrant who seized power of Cyrene c. 50 BCE, assassinated Phᴂdimus and forcibly married Aretaphila. The citizens of Cyrene…
Phillis Wheatley
by Gina Luria Walker Phillis Wheatley (1753 –1784) A slave girl of about seven or eight years old arrived in Boston in 1761, aboard a slaver, The Phillis.[1] She was a captive from somewhere along the Senegambian Coast in Africa, and her native language was Wolof.[2] Based on the approximated location of her birth along…
Hypatia
by Gina Luria Walker Hypatia 370–415 was a Greek scholar, daughter of a master teacher at the academy at the Great Library at Alexandria, Egypt. During her lifetime, Hypatia was renowned as a philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, and teacher, as well as a great beauty. She defied popular assumptions about women by wearing the black philosopher’s…
