Hylander: That doesn’t sound implausible to me in the light of this passage or of the Amazonomachy friezes I saw in the British museum last December.
ἀπόλλυται
I would say δευτέρην αὐτὴν ὑπομένουσαν is predicative. That’s why τὴν Ἀμαζόνα is before the verb and δευτέρην αὐτὴν ὑπομένουσαν is after the verb (though Greek word order doesn’t always necessarily make such an obvious distinction, I believe). δευτέρην αὐτὴν is an idiom and shouldn’t be split syntactically (though I think the word order might be reversible).
ἀπόλλυται
RE: Women toting weapons. Lot’s of Israeli Girls with m16 variants. The most unsettling aspect of this image is Israel’s adoption of the Stoner Weapon system that became the AR15, M16, Stoner SR25, etc. They tested that system back in 1960’s and detrermined it was an unsuitable design for desert warfare. The design hasn’t changed.
The LSJ gives some examples:
- the second of two, δ. αὐτή herself with another, Hdt.4.113, cf. AB89; ἑπτὰ δ. σοφοί a second seven sages, Euphro 1.12; εἷς καὶ δ. unus et alter, Hdn.Gr.2.934; “εἷς ἢ δ.” Jul.Or.6.190d; “ἕν τι . . ἢ δεύτερον” D.Chr.33.7; δ. καὶ τρίτος two or three, Plb.26.1.1.; neut. as Adv., ἅπαξ καὶ δεύτερον once or twice, Jul. ad Ath.278c.
I don’t have an LSJ in front of me right now, so I have no idea what AB89 refers to.
From the others, I found the first one easily enough:
Οὗτοι μετ’ ἐκείνους τοὺς σοφιστὰς τοὺς πάλαι
γεγόνασιν ἡμῶν ἐπτὰ δεύτεροι σοφοί.
(Deipnosophistae IX 24)
And just typing out the other examples:
εἷς καὶ δεύτερος – one and a second
εἷς ἤ δεύτερος – one or a second
ἕν τι…ἤ δεύτορον – some one…or a second
δεύτερος καὶ τρίτος two or three
ἅπαξ καὶ δεύτερον once or twice
On a somewhat related note: I have the impression that respectable Greek women were veiled when they left their homes, and generally kept out of the public sphere as much as possible, at least the wealthier ones. In light of this, it’s somewhat surprising that the Greek temples were decorated with statues of scantily clad women, portraying not only Amazons but even deities (but usually not, as far as I know, the really powerful and important ones like Athena, but rather the not-so-serious goddesses like Aphrodite). I don’t know what to think about all this exactly, but certainly there’s some sort of antithesis between the free and wild (sexually and otherwise) Amazons on the one hand, and the chaste upper class women and the unchaste and unfree courtesans on the other.
I have always thought that the Amazons was just another way for Ancient Greek elite men to figure “the other”. As some have mentioned there are many oppositions Giants and Gods, Lapiths and Centaurs, Greeks and Persians.
BBC radio featured the Amazons in its long running series “in our time”. Its available as a podcast here http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rr7r7. The academics involved were Paul Cartledge
A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture at Cambridge University Chiara Franceschini
Teaching Fellow at University College London and an Academic Assistant at the Warburg Institute Caroline Vout University Senior Lecturer in Classics and Fellow and Director of Studies at Christ’s College, Cambridge. Melvyn Bragg I am sure asks “but come on they must have existed…” sigh.
There is a thesis here https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2022/7859/umi-indiana-1927.pdf?sequence=1 which has a bibliography which might be of interest although the author doesnt seem to mention Judith Butler which means, as afar as I am concerned its missed the point. It may have useful signposts though.
There is also this Perversions: Deviant Readings by Mandy Merck which you can read in preview on Amazon. It is not written by a classicist but it has a promising title.
From the introduction:
“Nevertheless, my first essay in what a friend now calls ‘your killjoy criticism’ did get published, but I doubt that it changed many minds. (After I offered its conclusions to the London Matriarchy Study Group, pointing out that Minoan frescoes of women being served by male attendants demonstrated little more in the way of women’s rule than an ad for the local steakhouse, I was unceremoniously escorted from the room.)”
Delicious, isn’t it? 
Unfortunately, the book’s chapter on Amazons can’t be previewed. If the target group of the book are people who attend things like “the London Matriachy Study Group”, it’s no surprise the writer finds her ideas controversial. I wonder if they’re that controversial for the rest of us. While I think we all should get acquainted with people and ideas we initially don’t agree with, I just don’t have the patience for things that are patently absurd. This book certainly doesn’t seem to fit into that category, though guess it would be bad policy to elect to read something just because it’s likely I’m going to agree with its contents… Have you actually read it, Seneca? Was it worth it? And by the way, I do sympathize, to a certain point, with feminist, LBGT movements – but amicus Plato! Sometimes I wonder what’s the need for feminist or queer scholarship when we have sociology, anthropology etc.
Who is this Judith Butler person? I quickly checked the Wikipedia article, but is there something particularly relevant she’s said pertaining to Amazons?
Have you actually read it, Seneca?
No. I was searching for suitable books on Amazons and came across this, I think on google books, and saw that it had a bibliography. I discovered that the dominance of Amazon on the web makes searches about Amazons even harder. There is a further discourse of power here I think.
Sometimes I wonder what’s the need for feminist or queer scholarship when we have sociology, anthropology etc.
I think this shows the urgent need for both. 
Who is this Judith Butler person?
As she is one of the most famous theorists of gender and particularly gender performance I would have thought that the PhD thesis would have used her work in part as a theoretical basis. But as it takes a narratological approach perhaps he was not interested in that aspect.
I did meet someone at a conference a few years ago who was researching Amazons but all that I remember is he seemed to have an obsession with casting “Angelina Jolie” (of whom I had never heard) as Hippolyta or Penthesilea leading a host of Amazons against the Greeks. He was I seem to remember researching the Indica by Arrian. Its all pretty hazy.
There are a couple of pages in the preview on the Amazons:
Their successes literally remove them from female comparison, rendering them either masculine or divine. Nothing of real oppression of their sex is challenged by these mythic heroines, it is merely transcended.
I am not sure if we should take Mandy Merck’s heretical pose at face value. Groups calling themselves things like Matriachy Study Group are far out on a limb even among feminists. But books putting a orthodox point of view don’t sell so it is normal to put on a pose of heresy.
It’s a bit like how ever book of the Fall of the Roman Empire that claims the Empire, well, fell pose as courageous iconoclasts against the post modernist-modernist-what-fall orthodoxy.
I am not sure if we should take Mandy Merck’s heretical pose at face value.
I dont think we should take any text at face value, but not for the cynical reasons which you posit.
You may be right that I am being too cynical especially as I am basing my judgment on what I could read on Amazons from the preview rather than the book as a whole. However, Paul seemed to see Merck as criticizing feminist views on the Amazons (unless I have misread him). To me she seems rather a fairly mainstream feminist criticizing an extreme faction of feminism. I might add, that her view of the Amazons, isn’t so different from the one you expressed earlier in the thread even if she might express herself differently.
daivid, you appear to be taking seneca’s posts at face value. He’d teach you not to do that. 
- How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?
- One, and that’s nothing to laugh about!
No seriously, I suppose it’s better to get back to Greek before things really get out hand, no…? 
The thesis looks like it might have some insights, unfortunately it’s so long that I’ll see if I ever manage to read even a part of that, beside the fact that theses are not in general written in a way to encourage reading them…
Actually I found I could read a couple of pages of Merck on Amazons, and lost interest.
I suppose it’s better to get back to Greek
Always sound advice. Some things are best taken at face value.