OMG Iâm a classicist this is my JAM
You arenât the wrongest. (You are the rightest about the high-heeled boots. Those are a nope in terms of practicality and historicity). The Amazons were a semi-mythic group of warrior women who hailed from Thrace and/or Scythia (basically, âNorth-east ishâ). Whether there actually were warrior women from that area is debatable. Greek depictions of Amazons varies quite a bit. In early art, they were depicted as female versions of Greek hoplites, with the same costume- think tunic-y thing with very short skirt, torso armor (but not with boob cups, and definitely covering the shoulders because how the hell else it it gonna stay up), greaves, helmets, big-ass shields, and knifesticks spears.Over time, elements of Thracian and Scythian costume made their way into depictions of Amazons- things like bows and javelins, a fuckton of horses, patterned tunics, boots, pointy hats, and stripey pants. And maybe tattoos (Itâs kinda hard to tell if some craftsmen were trying to depict sleeves and sucked at it, or were genuinely trying to draw people with ink in their skin). The most common depiction of Amazons was as an archer on horseback, with a recurve bow, wearing long-sleeved tunic, belt, furry hat, trousers, and boots. Optional but popular is a half-moon shield.Â
This oneâs pants are boring, but you can see her quiver kinda behind her:
This one clearly shows the hat, pants, tunic, and sassy attitude:
On a horse, bomb-ass christmas tunic, fancy pants fancier than any fancy pants you will ever wear:
horse, half-moon shield, aerial knifestick javelin, complete lack of fucks:
pants and/or furry onesie, big hat, recurve bow, ancient speed-shooting techniques only recently rediscovered:
As for nudity, Amazons were rarely depicted naked (except for the odd stray boob) until the Hellenistic era (300âČs BC), and on into the Roman Era, especially during itâs midlife crisis phase (the century surrounding 0 AD, roughly) and itâs post-midlife-crisis have-sex-with-everyone, kill-all-your-neighborâs-chickens-and-eat-them-deep-fat-fried-all-at-once, act-surprised-when-you-contract-500-venereal-diseases-and-clog-your-arteries phase (Nero-ish onwards-ish. And yes, that is definitely the actual term used to refer to that period of Romeâs history, and not simply a sweeping generalization).
Gladiators were purely a Roman thing. You do get arenas and gladiators in Greece and Turkey and whatnot, but thatâs only because the Romans invaded and put them there because bloodsport made them less homesick or something, I guess. Female gladiators were certainly a thing, and may have fought naked for entertainment value (TBH Iâm too lazy to go look it up at the moment), but the thing is, gladiatorialism was a sport, just like modern taekwondo, judo, and fencing are sports. Yeah, people are going to get injured, but they didnât die nearly as often as our modern popular image would have you think, and their fighting style wouldnât really be all that useful on a battlefield, because they had rules to follow and their purpose was NOT to kill their opponent, but rather to provide an entertaining fight. Gladiators actually considered it a point of pride to never kill an opponent in the arena.Â
Back to pants, because pants are interesting. To the Greeks and Romans, pants were just about the weirdest fucking thing theyâd ever seen. Literally all of their clothes consisted of drapey rectangles. If they were feeling fancy, theyâd stick a belt or a nice brooch on it. Pants are a complicated, relatively form-fitting garment and it just freaked those poor Greeks right out. Pants were a visual signal for âreally fucking foreignâ.  The furry-hat-and-pants depiction I mentioned above was also the exact same costume that male Scythian warriors were depicted in, and the androgyny also freaked out the poor androcentric Greeks. Often, in vase art and such, the only way to tell an Amazon from a male Scythian is that the women have white skin. They lack of visible gender differences screamed âforeignâ to the Greeks. There are several mythic stories about the origins of pants, and they all attribute their invention to women. One story even has Medea (of âfuck you Jason, Iâm going to murder our kids to get back at you you utter fuckpileâ fame) inventing pants.Â
Historically speaking, pants were invented because people found themselves needing to ride horses to get places, and not-pants are really inconvenient for that. Since both men and women rode horses, both men and women wore pants. (Thereâs also a fair bit of merit to the theory that the Amazon legend comes from actual Scythian female horse-archers, since once you put a person on a horse and give them a recurve bow, upper body strength advantages donât mean shit). Pants were actually a key bit of military technology. Ancient China was having a hell of a time fighting off all these pants-wearing horse nomads (this was like 300-200 AD-ish) until the state of Qin finally decided to collectively put on pants and get on horses. They then preceded to kick the nomadâs pants-wearing asses and unify the warring states of China. Because pants.Â
Of course, because of bullshit, pants came to symbolize femininity and barbarianism to the Greeks and Romans. They think you look very silly in your uncivilized female legsleeves. Funny sidenote, the Romans avoided pants whenever they could, but when they kept invading more northerly places, shit kept getting colder. Winters in Northern Gaul (modern day France) were cold enough that soldiers actually had to put on pants, and the Romans thought this was significant enough that they called the region âGallia Bracataâ, which translates to âTrousered Gaulâ, or, if youâre slightly more imaginative, âPants Franceâ.Â
(This is just the first image that came up when I googled âpants franceâ)
So, to bring this all back around to Wonder Woman, Iâm really not a fan of those costumes. They arenât practical and they arenât accurate, and theyâre also cliche and just like every other sexy STRONG female warrior in fantasy media (I will direct you to @bikiniarmorbattledamage for more details and feminist rants). They could have kept the definitely necessary to show thigh skin by dressing them as Greek hoplites, but then theyâd have had to give them helmets and cover their precious hair, and give them actual for reals breastplates that protect above the breasts (seriously collarbones arenât made of steel and PROTECT YOUR SHOULDERS did you see what happened to poor Bucky), and arenât molded to the torso (seriously- if itâs stiff enough that you canât stab through it, itâs stiff enough that you canât move in something that tight). And even if it is only training, and for some reason theyâre not hitting anywhere thatâs exposed (maybe training to hit only really small target areas? IDK), the armor depicted wouldnât work- thereâs clearly no cushioning under it, and armor (any kind, really, plate, mail, scale, all of it) really doesnât work unless youâve got a layer of padding beneath it. Modern combat sports with limited target areas donât have form-fitting breast-cupping gear, they have thick pads that protect. For instance, two women competing in Taekwondo:Â
Not at all coincidentally, hereâs some modern body armor worn by female soldiers:Â
Incidentally, the Scythians also had similar armor, made of scales, woven leather, or some form of lamellar.Â
Anyway, the movie makers could have their characters showing a bit of thigh (if itâs that important that they be sexy somehow)Â and maintain some sense of accuracy with thick torso armor, which at least protects the vitals, If they wanted to really get back to the idea of Amazons as terrifying warrior women who act as equals to men and fight as equals to men, and keep the Ancient Cultures motif, these ladies would be wearing stripey pants and furry hats.Â
Basically, I think it would be awesome to put Wonder Woman in stripey pants.Â
Alrighty, so I just spent an hour looking up stuff about ancient pants. You donât have to dislike DCâs costumes just because I do, though- theyâre just not very accurate to either ancient Greek culture, or to ancient Greek depictions of Amazons. And thereâs no pants.
TBH now I kinda want to redesign Wonder Woman to be a Scythian Amazon. Lemme know if you want me to tag you or whatever if I end up posting a drawing of Wonder Woman in stripey pants.
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