Gender Roles

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Women in Combat

Among the most confusing and “barbaric” practices of the assorted steppes cultures that the Greeks encountered was the tendency for men and women alike to wear trousers, given their frequent horseback riding. Supposedly, trouser-wearing (or “unisex” wearing thereof) obfuscated one’s genitals, making it difficult for the Greeks to determine how to identify the sex/gender of a given barbarian.

This practice also apparently extended to the inclusion of women in Scythian armies, further intensifying Greek confusion.

Evidence of combat injuries on women’s skeletons
Inclusion of weaponry in women’s burials

Women in Governance

While it is difficult to say whether women had equal access to power/governance (whether as rulers, tribal representatives, counselors, etc.), there are at least several notable women whose stories are recounted by Greek and Roman writers. It may be that these stories are legendary or are embellished to emphasize the “otherness” of the strange and confusing nature of barbarians on the steppes to Greek and Roman audiences, but these may also provide invaluable insight into cultural and political practices of the Scythians and similar steppes groups.

Tirgatao (Maeotes)

Tirgatao is discussed briefly by Polyaenus in his Strategems (8.55):

Tirgatao of Maeotis married Hecataeus, king of the Sindi, a people who live a little above the Bosphorus. Hecataeus was expelled from his kingdom, but was reinstated in his throne by Satyrus, tyrant of Bosphorus. Satyrus gave him his daughter in marriage, and urged him to kill his former wife. As Hecataeus passionately loved the Maeotian, he could not think of killing her, but confined her to a strong castle; however, she found a way of making her escape from there. Fearing lest she should excite the Maeotians to war, Hecataeus and Satyrus made a strict search for her, which she skilfully eluded, travelling through lonely and deserted ways, hiding herself in the woods in the day, and continuing her journey in the night. At last she reached the country of the Ixomatae, where her own family possessed the throne. Her father was dead, and she afterwards married his successor in the kingdom. Then she roused the Ixomatae to war, and engaged many warlike nations around the Maeotis to join the alliance. The confederates first invaded the country of Hecataeus, and afterwards ravaged the dominions of Satyrus. Harassed by a war, in which they found themselves inferior to the enemy, they sent an embassy to sue for peace, accompanied by Metrodorus the son of Satyrus, who was offered as a hostage. She granted them peace, on stipulated terms, which they bound themselves by oath to observe. But no sooner had they made the oath, than they planned schemes to break it. Satyrus prevailed on two of his friends, to revolt to her, and put themselves under her protection; so as the more easily to find an opportunity to assassinate her. On their revolt, Satyrus wrote a letter, to ask for them to be handed over; which she answered, by alleging that the law of nations justified her in protecting those, who had placed themselves under her protection. The two men, who had revolted, one day requested an audience of her. While one distracted her with a pretended matter of importance, the other levelled a blow at her with a drawn sword, which fell upon her girdle; and the guards immediately seized and imprisoned them. They were afterwards examined by torture, and confessed the whole plot; upon which, Tirgatao ordered the hostage to be executed, and laid waste the territories of Satyrus with fire and sword. Stung with remorse for the calamities he had brought upon himself and his country, Satyrus died in the midst of an unsuccessful war; leaving his son Gorgippus to succeed him in the throne. He renounced his father’s proceedings, and sued for peace, which she granted on payment of a tribute, and put and end to the war.

Tomyris (Massagetae)

Perhaps the most well-known female ruler of the ancient world, the tale of Tomiris/Tomyris was recounted by Herodotus in his Histories (1.204-214), in which she successfully led her people, the Massagetae, against Cyrus the Great of Persia (and she killed him as revenge for his abduction of her son, who committed suicide out of shame for being captured).

Zarinaea/Zarinaia/Zarinea (Saka or Dahae)

Zarinaea is discussed briefly by Diodorus Siculus in his Library of History (2.34.3-5).

At that time the Sacae were ruled by a woman named Zarina, who was devoted to warfare and was in daring and efficiency by far the foremost of the women of the Sacae. Now this people, in general, have courageous women who share with their husbands the dangers of war, but she, it is said, was the most conspicuous of them all for her beauty and remarkable as well in respect to both her designs and whatever she undertook. 4 For she subdued such of the neighbouring barbarian peoples as had become proud because of their boldness and were trying to enslave the people of the Sacae, and into much of her own realm she introduced civilized life, founded not a few cities, and, in a word, made the life of her people happier. 5 Consequently her countrymen after her p465 death, in gratitude for her benefactions and in remembrance of her virtues, built her a tomb which was far the largest of any in their land; for they erected a triangular pyramid, making the length of each side three stades and the height one stade, and bringing it to a point at the top; and on the tomb they also placed a colossal gilded statue of her and accorded her the honours belonging to heroes, and all the other honours they bestowed upon her were more magnificent than those which had fallen to the lot of her ancestors.

Enarees/Enarei

The enarei or enarees were a group with a non-binary gender identity that reflected the divine nature of their roles as seers. At one point, Herodotus claims that the enarees' “affliction” (of either impotence or of men assuming a more feminine identity) was due to Scythians in the past having pillaged a temple of Aphrodite Urania (Histories 1.105), but later he recounts that the enarees themselves claimed their divine powers were a gift from the goddess (Histories 4.67).

The divining process of the enarees involved cutting the bark of linden trees into multiple strands, which they would then wind and unwind around their fingers while stating their prophesies.

Sauromatae

Herodotus recounts (in Histories 4.110-117) the mythical origin of the Sauromatae, a group descended from a union between Scythians and Amazons after the latter were shipwrecked following their war with the Greeks. Once the Scythians and Amazons managed to speak with one another (the Amazons having learned the Scythians' language), they agreed to marry and live together apart from the Scythians, since the Amazons noted that they would not become domesticated but would instead hunt, go to war, and “dress as men” as they always had.

This distinction–that the Amazons and their ways made them different than the Scythian women–is noteworthy, given the Greeks' perceptions of Scythian women as very Amazonian (at least in comparison with Greek women).

As an additional note about the Sauromatae and their ways: according to Herodotus, Sauromatian women did not marry until after they have killed an enemy.