ILLUSTRATIONS BY LAUREN BREVNERThe women in Pamela Toler’s new millennia-spanning history,
Women Warriors, gallop into battle on horseback, hack off enemies’
heads, order executions, mount attacks from jungle cover, and
command troops by the tens of thousands. “Women have always
fought,” Toler says. “And we’ve tended to lose sight of it.” Modern tools
such as forensic DNA testing, plus reexamination of burial artifacts
and original documents, are giving historians like Toler new insight
into the lives of women who fought with or without men alongside.
These were leaders, Toler says, “for whom battle was not a metaphor.”
WOMEN
WARRIORS
CA 1200 B.C.
FU HAO
SHANG DYNASTY GENERAL
Fu Hao may be the earliest
woman warrior whose name
and story we know. A princi-
pal wife of Emperor Wu Ding,
Gen. Fu Hao was a military
commander in her own right.
Modern study of ancient
Chinese writing suggests she
directed troops and led cam-
paigns; her tomb included
more than 100 weapons.CA 358-320 B.C.
CYNANE
MACEDONIAN LEADER
Cynane, Alexander the
Great’s half sister, earned a
reputation as a talented mili-
tary leader before she turned- She commanded Macedo-
nian armies, probably fighting
on horseback. The second-
century A.D. author Polyaenus
credits her with defeating one
army and killing its queen—in
hand-to-hand combat.
CA A.D. 361-411
MAWIYYA
ANTI-ROMAN REBEL
The widowed Arab queen
Mawiyya, ruler of a tribal
alliance called the Tanukh
Confederation, led a
fourth-century A.D. revolt
against Romans in what is now
Syria. Using desert guerrilla
tactics, she led troops deep
into Palestine, outmaneuver-
ing Roman legions that even-
tually accepted her terms.152 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC