In Greek mythology, Penthesilea was an Amazonian queen, daughter of Ares and Otrera and sister of Hippolyta, Antiope, and Melanippe. After Hector's death she came to Troy's aid with a band of Amazons and was slain by Achilles (or, in some traditions, by Neoptolemus). The lost epic Aethiopis told her combat in detail; later authors from Apollodorus to Quintus of Smyrna and Virgil reshaped her as a tragic warrior whose death foreshadowed Troy's fall.
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I.In the Epic Cycle
The five-book Aethiopis, attributed to Arctinus of Miletus and belonging to the Epic Cycle, described Penthesilea's arrival at Troy alongside the Aethiopian king Memnon. Achilles is the poem's central hero: he fights and kills Penthesilea, then Memnon, before his own death. The Aethiopis itself is lost, but summaries and later retellings preserve the outline.
In that tradition Penthesilea is a Thracian Amazon, daughter of Ares, who comes with twelve companions. After distinguishing herself in battle she meets Achilles and dies by his hand. When Thersites taunts Achilles for grieving over — or having loved — the fallen queen, Achilles kills him and must seek purification on Lesbos before returning to fight Memnon.
Variant traditions already circulated early: one myth has Neoptolemus rather than Achilles kill her, and a lost poem of Stesichorus was said to cast Penthesilea, not Achilles, as Hector's slayer. Homer's Iliad recalls Priam fighting Amazons in his youth on the Sangarius, anchoring the Amazons in Anatolian epic geography.
II.Portrayal in antiquity
Pseudo-Apollodorus's Epitome has Achilles kill Penthesilea, fall in love with her after her death, and slay Thersites for mocking him. Diodorus Siculus celebrates her as the last Amazon to win renown for valor in war, after which Amazon glory faded into legend. Virgil's Aeneid casts her as a tragic bellatrix who came too late to save Troy; when Aeneas sees her image in Juno's temple at Carthage, her defeat and Memnon's foreshadow the city's sack, and her fate anticipates Camilla later in the poem.
Quintus of Smyrna opens his Posthomerica with her story: she had accidentally killed Hippolyta while hunting and, grief-stricken, sought an honorable death in battle, so she was easily persuaded to join Troy. He describes the Amazons' surprise attack, the slaughter of her companions, and her inspiration of Trojan women who watch from the walls.
In art she appears on the Bassae Frieze of the Temple of Apollo Epicurius, where Achilles slays the crowned queen as they exchange a gaze; Pausanias records a painting by Panaenus on Zeus's throne at Olympia of Achilles supporting the dying Penthesilea. The Attic vase-painter nicknamed the Penthesilea Painter treated the subject so often that his modern name derives from it.
III.Later reception
Medieval Europe reworked her as a chivalric heroine who came to Troy for love or reverence of Hector. She appears in Benoît de Sainte-Maure's Roman de Troie, Christine de Pizan's City of Ladies, Lydgate's Troy Book, and Boccaccio's De mulieribus claris, where she surpasses earlier Amazon queens in strength and skill. In that tradition she is often slain by Achilles's son, and her body is returned to the Thermodon for burial.
Heinrich von Kleist's drama Penthesilea reverses the outcome — she kills Achilles and then dies of grief — and inspired operas by Othmar Schoeck and Pascal Dusapin. Hugo Wolf composed a symphonic poem of the same name; Robert Graves and Judy Grahn are among modern poets who returned to the Amazon queen.