Adrienne Mayor > Quotes

“The universal quest to find balance and harmony between men and women, beings who are at once so alike and so different, lies at the heart of all Amazon tales.”
― Adrienne Mayor, The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women Across the Ancient World

“Archaeology reveals that about one out of three or four nomad women of the steppes was an active warrior buried with her weapons.”
― Adrienne Mayor, The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women Across the Ancient World

“Mithradates’ own handsome coins featured his idealized portrait—looking very much like his hero Alexander, with parted lips and luxuriant hair. Imagery evoking Mithradates’ Persian connections appeared on the reverse, such as winged Pegasus and the star and crescent. Other coins displayed Dionysus the Liberator (associating him with opposition to Rome by slaves and rebels in Italy). Mithradates made sure his portrait was known to everyone. He employed the best Greek artisans, and he understood the propaganda value of aesthetically pleasing currency. His coinage conveyed the message that Mithradates was the great unifier—and protector—of Greek and Persian civilizations. Knowing that his unsurpassed coins would be admired, collected, and selected for hoards of buried treasure, Mithradates also designed them for posterity. Indeed, Mithradates’ portrait coins are considered by numismatic experts to be the most beautiful of all ancient coins.”
― Adrienne Mayor, The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy

“Mithradates’ preparations for war included very heavy coin minting in 93–89 BC, to pay for large armies and arms.20”
― Adrienne Mayor, The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy

“Strabo also described the sexual mores of the mountain tribes of Media (northwestern Iran): the men have up to five women and 'likewise the women believe it honorable to have as many men as possible and consider less than five a calamity.”
― Adrienne Mayor, The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World

“While war ravaged Rome, Mithradates gloried in the victories of the Greek campaign. Halley’s Comet was taken as a good omen by Mithradates’ Magi and by his allies. In Athens, the philosopher Aristion succeeded Athenion, elected on a pro-Mithradates platform; Aristion’s name appeared with Mithradates’ on Athenian coins of 87–86 BC.”
― Adrienne Mayor, The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy

“Mithradates began minting beautiful silver tetradrachms with his portrait in Pergamon, and the city of Smyrna also stamped bronze coins with his likeness. Other cities, including Ephesus, Miletus, Tralles, and Erythrae, issued new gold staters to trumpet their independence from Rome.19”
― Adrienne Mayor, The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy

“The rebels issued coins showing the Italian Bull goring the Roman Wolf. Archaeologists have also discovered gold Italian coins similar to Mithradates’ Pontic coins, showing Dionysus, an allusion to Mithradates’ nickname and a symbol of rebellion against Rome.17”
― Adrienne Mayor, The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy

“Archaeologists have discovered special-issue gold and silver coins with images of Dionysus (god of liberation) and Mithradatic devices commemorating the communications between Mithradates and the insurgents in Italy from this time.”
― Adrienne Mayor, The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy

“I found that this was a desert region so obscure that the designers of atlases typically stitch page bindings directly over that very latitude and longitude, obliterating the map’s topography as surely as any sandstorm.”
― Adrienne Mayor, The First Fossil Hunters: Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and Myth in Greek and Roman Times

“But now Heracles and his men are the first Greeks to drop anchor at Themiscyra, the Amazons’ stronghold. The men pitch their tents on the beach.”
― Adrienne Mayor, The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women Across the Ancient World

“Both had been riding horses and wielding bows and spears since childhood, so they probably took pleasure in chasing game and practicing battle skills together. She wore typical Amazon-Scythian-Persian attire, and we know that Mithradates dressed in traditional Persian style, so we can picture the couple similarly garbed in long-sleeved tunics adorned with golden animals and geometric designs, wool cloaks edged with gold, heavy leather and gold belts with golden buckles, and patterned trousers tucked into high boots. Each carried a Scythian bow exquisite workmanship, and two light spears. Their horses, of the finest stock from the high pastures of Armenia, would have been decorated with ornaments of gold.”
― Adrienne Mayor

“The Scythians were not a literate culture—they had fine art, but their stories were preserved only by accident, when a literate culture became interested in them.”
― Adrienne Mayor, The First Fossil Hunters: Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and Myth in Greek and Roman Times