Penthesilia, daughter of Otrere and Ares, accidentally killed Hippolyte and was purified
by Priam. In battle she slew many, and amongst them Machaon, and was afterwards herself
killed by Achilles, who fell in love with the
Amazon after her death and slew Thersites for jeering at him.1
1 These events were narrated in the Aethiopis of Arctinus, as we learn from the summary of that poem drawn up by Proclus. See Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 33. Compare Diod. 2.46.5; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica i.18ff., 227ff., 538ff.; Tzetzes, Posthomerica 6ff., 100ff., 136ff.; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 999; Dictys Cretensis iv.2ff. Quintus Smyrnaeus explains more fully than Apollodorus the reason why Penthesilia came to Troy （Posthomerica i.18ff.）. Aiming at a deer in the chase, she had accidentally killed her sister Hippolyte with her spear, and, haunted by the Furies of the slain woman, she came to Troy to be purified from her guilt. The same story is told more briefly by Diodorus Siculus. According to Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 999, Thersites excited the wrath of Achilles, not only by his foul accusations, but by gouging out the eyes of the beautiful Amazon. In the Aethiopis it was related how, after killing the base churl, Achilles sailed to Lesbos and was there purified from the guilt of murder by Ulysses, but not until he had offered sacrifice to Apollo, Artemis, and Latona. See Proclus, in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 33. The mother of Penthesilia is named Otrere （Otrera） by Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 997 and Hyginus, Fab. 112, in agreement with Apollodorus. Machaon is usually said to have been killed by Eurypylus, and not, as Apollodorus says, by Penthesilia. See Paus. 3.26.9; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica vi.390ff.; Tzetzes, Posthomerica 520ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 113. From Paus. 3.26.9 we learn that Eurypylus, not Penthesilia, was represented as the slayer in the Little Iliad of Lesches.
Apollodorus. Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Includes Frazer's notes.
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