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Vintage Red Heads

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30 Day Royal Wedding Challenge: 6/30

Favorite wedding of Denmark: Konstantin & Anne Marie

I know it’s a cheating but i don’t care. Their love story is the most beautiful that I ever heard! Just look at their eyes how they are love each other and they still together! I wish we could see them more often because they are my favs too!

Hypsicratea - Warrior queen of Pontus

Between 88 BCE and 63 BCE, king Mithridates IV of Pontus, in present-day Turkey, fought against the Roman Empire. One of his most stalwart companions was the warrior woman Hypsicratea.

According to Roman writer Valerius Maximus, Hypsicratea was Mithridates’ official wife. Out of love for her husband she: 

“(…)was happy to trade her splendid beauty for a masculine style, for she cut her hair and accustomed herself to riding horses and using weapons so that she could participate in the king’s toils and share his dangers. Indeed, when Mithradates was cruelly defeated by [the Roman general] Pompey and fleeing through the lands of wild peoples, Hypsicratea was his unflagging companion in body and soul. For Mithradates, her extraordinary fidelity was his greatest solace and most pleasant comfort in those bitter times and hardships. He considered that even while he was wandering in adversity he was always at home because Hypsicratea was in exile along with him.”

Plutarch gives a slightly more different version of her story. According to him, Hypsicratea was a concubine. She “rode a Persian steed and was dressed and armed like a Persian man. She never tired of rough riding and combat”and cared for Mithridates’ horse. The king apparently liked to call her by the masculine version of her name, Hypsicrates, because of her daring disposition. 

Hypsicratea’s existence and rank are confirmed by archeology. An ancient Greek inscription recovered from the Sea of Azov says: “Hypsicrates, wife of Mithradates Eupator. Love and Respect”. Which means that she was indeed his wife and not a concubine.

It’s likely that Hypsicratea joined Mithridates’ cavalry around 68-67 BCE. Indeed, the king recruited many fighters from the nomad tribes of Armenia, Colchis, Caucasia, and the Caspian Sea region. Some of these warriors were female, so Hypsicratea may have been one of them. Or maybe she was among the fighters for Thermodon who joined Mithridates’ army in 67 BCE.

In 67 BCE, Hypsicratea contributed to Mithridates’ victory at Zela. She was by his side when Pompey attacked his camp in 66 BCE. Mithridates charged at the Romans with his horsemen, but they were soon dispersed and he found himself with three companions, including Hypsicratea, left. They endured a long winter march and were finally sheltered by neighboring tribes.

In the meantime, the Romans were attacked by hostile tribes on the borderland of Iberia and Albania (near Tbilisi, Georgia). Among them were reportedly warrior women since Appian wrote that Pompey’s soldiers discovered “many women”on the battlefield and among the prisoners and that “the women’s wounds showed that they had fought as vigorously and courageously as the men”. Graves of warrior women were indeed excavated in this area. 

Mithridates and Hypsicratea survived this dangerous journey and Mithridates’ regained his throne. In 63 BCE, a revolt led by his son allied with Pompey forced him to commit suicide. Hypsicratea’s fate remains mysterious, but she may have survived. Indeed, her name was extremely rare and there were only two occurrences of it, the two being contemporary. The first was the queen herself, and the other a shadowy prisoner of war named Hypsicrates. This Hypsicrates was a war prisoner freed by Julius Caesar in Pontus in 47 BCE and later served him as an historian. This person was reportedly an expert on two subjects: fortifications of the Borporan Kingdom and the Amazons of the Caucasus region. Could this Hypsicrates be, in fact, Hypsicratea? If this was the case, she would have lived up to 92 years old.

Bibliography:

Mayor Adrienne, The Amazons, Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World

Plutarch, Parallel Lives

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ENFP - The Champion, The Campaigner, The Discoverer. 🤗🌻🛵

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Unwritten - Natasha Bedingfield

Anything Could Happen - Ellie Goulding

She Way Out - The 1975

Hit The Lights - Selena Gomez

Shut Up And Dance - WALKTHEMOON

I Like Me Better - Lauv

Chiquitita - ABBA

We Are Young - fun. ft Janelle Monáe

Ophelia - The Lumineers

Raise Your Glass - P!NK

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun - Cyndi Lauper

Small Victory - Transviolet

Sunflower - Post Malone & Swae Lee

When Will My Life Begin - Mandy Moore

Boom Clap - Charli XCX

Love It If We Made It - The 1975

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LIBRA SUN, GEMINI RISING, PISCES MOON ESTP

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Αν γίνομαι άγρια θάλασσα και φουρτούνες φέρνω,

ίσως εσύ,

μόνο εσύ,

να ξέρεις να παλεύεις καλύτερα με τα κύματα. 

- Ιωάννου Α.

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“She’s an old soul with young eyes, a vintage heart, and a beautiful mind.”

— Nicole Lyons

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Underrated Female Ruler

• Empress Theodora of the Byzantine Empire

Theodora,empress, and wife of the emperor Justinian I, was probably the most powerful woman in Byzantine history. Her intelligence and political strategy made her Justinian’s most trusted adviser and enabled her to use the power and influence of her office to promote religious and social policies that favoured her interests.

Theodora is remembered as one of the first rulers to recognize the rights of women, passing strict laws to prohibit the traffic in young girls and altering the divorce  laws to give greater benefits to women.This represented unparalleled social mobility for women at the time. It gave many women access to power.

Before becoming empress, she had once been a concubine in the service of one of these provincial governors. She knew only too well the kind of power these men had over women.

That's why she spent much of her reign trying to mitigate the laws against the miaphysites. She saw to it that women could own and inherit property, which was quite a breakthrough because it gave daughters and wives real social power.

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“Find a beautiful piece of art. If you fall in love with Van Gogh or Matisse or John Oliver Killens, or if you fall love with the music of Coltrane, the music of Aretha Franklin, or the music of Chopin - find some beautiful art and admire it, and realize that that was created by human beings just like you, no more human, no less.”

— Maya Angelou

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He really cares about her, doesn’t he? Yeah. Freaking soulmates.