Atalanta

What do you do when a powerful woman defies Greek gender roles?

You...... turn her into a lion?

If you were wondering who Atalanta was after reading my introduction, you've come to the right place.

Atalanta's story is one that is renowned in Greek mythology. It's hard not to be thought of as important when your story is painted on very old vases. But is Atalanta's story so popular for the right reasons?

I'm going to answer that question for you. No, it's not.

Atalanta was fierce, strong and powerful. Basically, she was everything that Greek men never wanted her to be. And what did she get for it? She got a lifetime of being undermined and treated as inferior. She got duped. Greek mythology did her dirty (pardon my modern slang).

Who is responsible for Atalanta's tale? Why, that would be our good friend Ovid.

Are you sensing a pattern here? I'm sensing a pattern.

I would let Atalanta tell you the story herself, but seeing as lions can't talk, I'll go ahead and give you the details.

The story starts when Atalanta was born. She was born to the king of Arcadia, Iasos, who only wanted sons. So, he left her on a mountainside to die, where she was raised by bears like a Greek Tarzan until she was able to rejoin Greek society. Of course, being raised in the woods gave Atalanta skills no Greek woman was allowed before. She was an incredible hunter, athlete and wrestler. She was a badass, and she made many men feel emasculated.

Masculinity is so fragile, am I right?

Eventually, Atalanta started making waves in Greek society. Many people thought Atalanta was unnatural and beastly. She was a social pariah. How dare a woman become better than any man at manly things, like fighting and killing? She wrestled Peleus, the king of Phthia, and won. She drew the first blood of the Calydonian boar. She refused to participate in normal conventions. She didn't want to get married, or be pious. She was stronger, faster and smarter than any man alive.

And that was the problem, wasn't it?

After she did all these great things and continued besting Greek men left and right, Atalanta's father (King Iasos, the one who left her to die) inserted himself back into her life and demanded that she marry. Knowing that there was probably no good way to completely avoid this, Atalanta agreed on one condition. The man she married must beat her in a race-- ergo, he must be her equal in speed, strength and intelligence. This would probably put marriage off for a while, if not ever.

She added on the condition that if she beat the man foolish enough to challenge her in the race, she got to kill him immediately afterward. Because why not?

Men came from all around Greece to try their luck at racing Atalanta. Needless to say, they all died. No one was faster.

Until one day, Hippomenes came along. No, he was not inhumanly fast, strong or smart. He was nothing but entirely ordinary. There was nothing inherently interesting about him, and yet, in the story, he tamed the fearsome Atalanta anyway. Atalanta, who previously had no interest in anything but bloodshed and beating men at their own game, met Hippomenes and was ultimately brought down to her "rightful" size. Diminished. Undermined.

How, you ask? Apples. He used golden apples, given to him by the goddess Aphrodite. These apples were charmed so that Atalanta could not possibly resist them.

Big thanks to Aphrodite for supporting her fellow woman, as always. She is such a champion for feminism. (Except not really.)

Long story short, Hippomenes challenged Atalanta to a race. According to Ovid, Atalanta took one look at Hippomenes's face and softened her resolve to win, feeling desire for him she had never felt for anyone. Ovid said that Atalanta contemplated talking him out of racing her. She thought about purposefully losing to him so she could marry him. She also wondered if forcing him to marry her might make him resent her because, and I quote, "marrying me is such a cruel thing."

So because she doesn't conform, she's stupid, right, Ovid? She's not worth killing off oh-so-special Hippomenes. Forcing any man to marry her would be cruel because she would never be subservient to him. She takes one look at one random guy and suddenly everything she's been doing her whole life, everything she's believed in up until this moment, means absolutely nothing.

No one told Atalanta that she didn't need a husband. She was doing perfectly on her own.

Ultimately, Atalanta agreed to race Hippomenes. During the race, each time it seemed like Atalanta might win, Hippomenes dropped a golden apple on the ground, distracting Atalanta and pulling her away from the race so she could pick it up. This happened three times, and with the last golden apple discarded, Hippomenes stole the lead and won. Atalanta didn't seem disturbed by these tricks and married him without argument. They lived happily for a few years, until....

Oh right, I almost forgot about the lion thing. You guys are going to love this.

As Atalanta was once defiant of Greek gender norms, so must her marriage defy norms as well. She and Hippomenes were so in love that they didn't even have time to think about Aphrodite, whose grace made their marriage possible. Aphrodite, angry at the ungrateful couple, cursed Hippomenes with a constant desire to have sex with Atalanta. It got so out of hand that, one day while in the woods, they desecrated a sacred temple. This made Cybele, the goddess of this particular temple, angry, of course, so she transformed Atalanta and Hippomenes into lions, forcing them to live the rest of their beastly and uncivilized lives in the woods.

(So basically, everything is all Aphrodite's fault.)

So, like ashes return to ashes, the animal-like Atalanta must return to her roots and live out her days in the woods. Her tale, as famous as it is, serves now as a cautionary tale to women who rise above the gender roles.

Act like a beast, and you'll end up one.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Hello, everyone! I hope you liked the first rendition of "Medusa's Feminist Commentary". For this story, I took the story of Atalanta, told by Ovid, and adapted it so that Medusa could tell it. I didn't change any parts of Atalanta's story-- they are all part of the original telling. The only element I added to this story was having Medusa tell it and provide commentary throughout. Medusa's feminist sass is my doing. I used the sources below for information about Atalanta.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• "Metamorphoses" by Ovid, translated by Tony Kline. Web Source: UnTextbook.
• "The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women Across the Ancient World" by Adrienne Mayor.
• "The Atalanta Legend in Art and Literature" by Reet A. Howell and Maxwell L. Howell. Web Source: J-Stor.

Banner image provided by: Wikimedia Commons.