Hell Hath No Fury Read Online Free

but society remains deeply resistant to the true story of women’s history of combat. The pervasive image of women in early societies remains that of a wilting sexual stereotype, huddled in fear inside the cave or castle, waiting for the men to come home.
    In reality, women have always fought, and accounts of their activities are to be found in the earliest annals of history. Women warriors were everywhere in the ancient world, with a surprising continuity over a long period. Roman accounts of battles record finding numbers of bodies of female warriors on the battlefield. Thirty captive Gothic warrior women were paraded in front of Emperor Aurelian in a triumph at Rome in 273 CE . There are centuries of records like these.
    And like men, the women of the classical period fought for sport and recreation, too. During the Roman Empire, women fought in the public arenas, both as free women and as slaves, and competed at the opening of the Colosseum in 80 CE . Around the year 100 CE , the Roman satirist Juvenal recorded that it became fashionable for women of the nobility to fight in the arenas, and so many signed up for training that they were finally banned in 200 CE .
    Individual warriors such as the seventh-century Arab princess Khawlah bint al-Azwar al-Kind’yya (see Chapter 1) often sprang from royalty or nobility, and their family or tribal pride drove them on. As high-born women, too, they would have access to weapons, horses, and armor, which were normally available only to the rich. But the lack of all these never deterred those women who wanted to fight from finding the means.
    A striking number of these early women warriors rose to become commanders-in-chief. From the days of the Great Goddess of prehistory, also known as Magna Mater, the Great Mother, and Mother Earth, women held power in their tribes and communities based on their connection with the land. As the human representatives of the sovereignty and spirit of the land, women were the land’s logical defenders. Despite their tribal differences, the Celts living and fighting throughout continental Europe and the British Isles made no distinction between men and women in choosing a leader, and women also held sway in Egypt, China, and elsewhere in the East.
    Traditional historians often dismiss the earliest female commanders as mythical, but many of them have been shown to exist.
Women Intelligent and Courageous in Warfare,
a treatise attributed to the Greek intellectual Pamphile of Epidaurus writing in the first century CE , features a number of bold and successful female war leaders whose military exploits are well documented and generally agreed upon.
    Women warriors mostly saw full combat in preindustrial times, when hand-to-hand fighting was the order of the day. Undoubtedly some fighting women were taller or stronger than the average: Khawlah bint al-Azwar al-Kind’yya was at first taken to be a man because of her height, and she revealed herself as a woman only reluctantly, when the battle was won. But more important than size for any fighter, female or male, is a fighting spirit, which Khawlah and all women warriors have in abundance. Muhammad himself paid tribute to the prowess of the most famous female warrior of the period, Nusaybah bint Ka’b, also known as Umm ’Umara (see Chapter 1), recalling, “On the day of [the battle of] Uhud, I never looked to the right nor to the left without seeing Umm ’Umara fighting to defend me.”
    As with men, a deficiency in size or strength could be made up by swiftness, confidence, and skill. There are many records of women receiving martial training. Perhaps the greatest tribute to its success can be seen in the career of the semilegendary female samurai Tomoe Gozen, in twelfth-century Japan (see Chapter 1). A consummate fighter, she is described as skilled with many different weapons, an outstanding swordswoman, a remarkably strong archer, and a superb horsewoman. In battle, her