The Amazons and the Greeks end up fighting, in spite of this seemingly auspicious beginning. The guilty party is （as so often in Greek myth） the goddess Hera, whose malevolence is both boundless and multi-directional. Her dislike of Heracles is unwavering, caused by the fact that Zeus fathered him with a mortal woman, Alcmene: there are few things that irritate Hera more than the offspring of her husband’s many infidelities. To stir up trouble against Heracles in this instance, Hera disguises herself as an Amazon and tells the other women that these xenoi – strangers, or foreigners （from which we take the word ‘xenophobia’） – are kidnapping their queen. The Amazons pick up their arms and hasten to see what is happening to the queen, who has been talking to Heracles on his ship. Heracles, seeing a bunch of armed women approaching on horseback, assumes he has been tricked. Showing his customary calm reason, he asks no questions but simply kills Hippolyta and takes her belt. Plutarch also has him take her axe away with him17 （those who choose to see the belt purely as a piece of sexual symbolism tend to overlook this part. One hesitates to imagine what a woman’s fighting-axe might represent, but I feel confident Freud would be no help at all）。 Heracles and his men fight the Amazons and then he sails away to Troy. Hippolyta’s generosity was worth nothing when set against the paranoia of a murderous man.
Pausanias, in his Description of Greece, tells us about the temple of Zeus at Olympia which has the labours of Heracles carved onto it. The taking of Hippolyta’s belt was placed above the doors. Additionally, on the base of the throne of the statue of Zeus （a huge gold-and ivory-decorated figure） is a scene of an Amazonomachy. Pausanias looks at this scene of Heracles fighting the Amazons and carefully counts the number of combatants on each side: twenty-nine. He also notes that Theseus is fighting alongside Heracles.
In some versions of their respective myths, Theseus and Heracles team up against the Amazons, as on the relief which Pausanias admires. In other versions, Theseus makes his own separate voyage to the Amazons after Heracles had done the same. The biographer Plutarch discusses these variations in his Life of Theseus.18 In the earliest versions he has found of the story, Theseus receives the Amazon Antiope as a reward for his bravery in fighting her sisters. But Plutarch finds this unconvincing: none of the other men on the Heraclean expedition take an Amazon captive, he explains. Plutarch finds the alternative explanation more plausible. He mentions the author Bion, who claimed that Theseus took the Amazon by deceit （this would be very much in keeping with Theseus’ attitude to women, it must be said. As Plutarch drily puts it, there are other stories about Theseus’ marriages which had neither good beginnings nor happy endings）。19 By nature, Bion says, the Amazons were philandrous – ‘fond of men’ – and didn’t flee from Theseus, but rather sent him gifts as a welcome guest. He invited the Amazon who brought the gifts onto his ship and then set sail with her still on board.
This, then, provides the cause for the second Amazonomachy: when the Amazons invade Athens to try to reclaim their lost sister, Antiope. Plutarch says this Amazon war was neither a minor nor womanish task for Theseus. He did not underestimate the perils of fighting these formidable warriors, and nor should we. The Amazons, Plutarch adds, wouldn’t have made their camp nor fought hand-to-hand battles between the Pnyx and the Museion （two hills not far from the centre of Athens） if they hadn’t been fearless in conquering the surrounding country. An Amazon invasion, in other words, is impressive. They make sure they control the surrounding area before they take on a city. In spite of Theseus having a whole city of men at his disposal, the war lasts for three months. Cleidemus, one of Plutarch’s sources, says that hostilities ended when Hippolyta secured a treaty between the two sides （Cleidemus gives Antiope’s name as Hippolyta, Plutarch explains）。 And when the tragedian Aeschylus describes the Amazons fighting in Athens, he imagines they built their own citadel on the Hill of Ares, to rival those that Theseus had built;20 in other words, this Amazon battle wasn’t just a scrap or guerrilla warfare, but an all-out siege.
As we have seen with other parts of the Amazon myth, there are multiple versions of this story. Some sources say that the woman who fought beside Theseus （Plutarch has given up on a conclusive name, it seems） was killed by another Amazon, called Molpadia. In other words, this version of Antiope fights against the Amazons who have come to reclaim her. But Plutarch reassures us that the antiquity of this story means we shouldn’t be surprised that it wanders about. And wander about it does: Theseus goes on to marry again, a woman named Phaedra. Sometimes it is this which provokes the war with the Amazons, because he has ditched Antiope for another woman. Theseus also has a son by Antiope/Hippolyta, called either Hippolytus or Demopho?n.