Hippolyte

"Horse-unharnesser." A daughter of Ares and Otrera, was queen of the Amazons, and a sister of Antiope and Melanippe. She wore, as an emblem of her dignity, a girdle given to her by her father; and when Heracles, by the command of Eurystheus, came to fetch this girdle, Hippolyte was slain by Heracles.1

According to another tradition, Hippolyte, with an army of Amazons, marched into Attica, to take vengeance on Theseus for having carried off Antiope; but being conquered by Theseus, she fled to Megara, where she died of grief, and was buried. Her tomb, which was shown there in later times, had the form of an Amazon's shield.2

In some accounts Hippolyte is said to have been married to Theseus instead of Antiope. Euripides, in his Hippolytus, makes her the mother of Hippolytus.

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Shakespeare introduced her in his A Midsummer Night's Dream, where he betroths her to Theseus, the Duke of Athens.

References

Notes

  1. Hyginus. Fabulae, 30.
  2. Pausanias. Description of Greece i, 41.7; Plutarch. Theseus, 27; Pseudo-Apollodorus. The Library ii, 5.9; Apollonius Rhodius. Argonautica ii, 968.

Source

  • Smith, William. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. London: Taylor, Walton, and Maberly.

This article incorporates text from Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) by William Smith, which is in the public domain.