In the comics series, Themyscira is typically portrayed as a paradise (as its former name of Paradise Island would indicate) where women engage in both physical and intellectual culture, giving them superhuman athletic prowess and advanced technology including invisible airplanes and purple lasers that can heal any wound. The mythological Themiscyra was typically depicted as a natural wonderland as well, though usually without the lasers and invisible vehicles. The Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography describes Themiscyra as “a rich and beautiful district,” which was always green and bountiful in its vegetation. This plentiful plant life was necessary for Themiscyra’s innumerable herds of cattle and horses. The area was said to produce great quantities of the grains like pannick and millet, and the southern region produced a wide variety of fruits, including grapes, apples, pears, and nuts, as well as honey for which the region was famous. These were said to grow so abundantly that the Amazons couldn’t even use them all, and the excess would go to waste still on the trees.

The Greek geographer Strabo says that the Amazons spent their time in farming, raising cattle, and–most of all–training horses. The strongest among the Amazons hunted on horseback and played war games among each other. It’s not hard to see how writer William Moulton Marston and artist H.G. Peter conceived of the comic book version of the Amazons’ home.

One of the most commonly held ideas about the Amazons is that they only had one breast, because they each cauterized off their right breast in order to use their right arms more freely for swinging swords, shooting bows, or throwing javelins. This legend goes all the way back into antiquity, with even the geographer Strabo repeating the idea (though it is probably worth noting that Strabo is pretty skeptical about the very existence of Amazons to begin with). As Smithsonian magazine explains, this idea can be traced back to a folk etymology that has roots going way, way back. The Greeks–and modern proponents of the “one-breasted Amazon” theory–believed that the word Amazon came from the prefix a-, meaning “without,” and mazos, meaning “breast.” (The actual Greek word for breast was mastos; compare words like mastectomy and mastodon. Bonus fact: did you know that “mastodon” means “boob tooth”?)

Anyway, the idea of a one-breasted Amazon can be pretty easily debunked by looking at literally any piece of classical art featuring Amazons (and there’s a lot; they were a common motif), all of which feature two breasts. The legend of severing their breasts was almost certainly in response to the false etymology. In fact, the word Amazon probably isn’t Greek at all, but rather a loanword from Persian meaning “fight as a group,” a thing the Amazons were pretty famous for.

The Trojan War is one of the biggest events of Greek mythology, with an entire generation of heroes playing some role or other in it. It was basically the Infinity War of its day. While the main fighting forces were the various chieftains of Greece against the Trojans and their allies from around Asia Minor, armies from as far away as Ethiopia and India were said to have taken part, so it’s no surprise that the war-hungry Amazons put in an appearance as well. Following the events of the Iliad in which Achilles has killed the Trojan prince Hector, the Amazons arrive to support the Trojan side, led by their queen Penthesilea. As Theoi Greek Mythology explains, Penthesilea may have come for mercenary reasons, or she may have been seeking redemption after accidentally killing her sister in battle.

Whatever the reason, the Amazons enter the battle against the Greeks, and Penthesilea makes her mark by slaying the Greek hero Machaon. In revenge, the greatest Greek warrior, Achilles, kills Penthesilea, but when he removes her helmet, he falls in love with the beautiful (if dead) Amazon queen. Another Greek named Thersites, the ugliest of all the Achaeans, teases Achilles for his crush and pokes Penthesilea’s eye out with a spear. In a rage, Achilles kills his own theoretical ally, a murder for which he has to be ritually purified before returning to battle.

While most stories of the Amazons and Themiscyra fall into the realm of mythology, there is at least one historical account that tells of events involving not legendary heroes like Hercules or Jason, but rather actual, historical Romans. The Greek-speaking Roman historian Appian lived in the second century CE and wrote a number of works of history, primarily describing the events of Roman wars, both civil and foreign. In his work The Mithridatic Wars, he recounts the series of three wars fought by the Romans against Mithridates VI, the King of Pontus, in the first half of the first century BCE. The Pontic Empire was centered in Asia Minor and included the area around the Thermodon, so you know Themiscyra got involved.

According to Appian, during the Third Mithridatic War, the Roman general Lucullus led his forces against the city of Themiscyra and besieged it, bringing all of the Roman siege tactics–such as towers, mounds, and tunnels–in order to undermine the city’s walls and invade. The citizens of Themiscyra, which Appian doesn’t explicitly identify as Amazons but also doesn’t deny were Amazons, used somewhat less conventional tactics in their defense. They would dig into the Roman tunnels from above and fill the tunnels with wild animals, including bears and even swarms of bees. Nevertheless, the city seems to have fallen to the Romans then and is never mentioned in Roman histories again.

Themiscyra and the Amazons presented something of a problem for the ancient Greeks. At first, the tales of warrior women in a funhouse mirror version of Greek society seemed like a plausible understanding of what was happening at the edge of the known world in the 8th century BCE. As Smithsonian magazine points out, however, the problem came once the Greeks’ worldview expanded and they started looking for evidence of the Amazons. It’s easy to talk about the wild stuff happening on the shores of the Black Sea when no one you know has ever been to the Black Sea. It got harder to reconcile once Greek conquests stretched into the Pontic region. For the Athenians, proof of the Amazons was important to their civic identity, as the conquest of the warrior women was tied to their legendary founder Theseus.

The fifth century BCE historian Herodotus tried to explain what had happened to the Amazons. He said that the Amazons had scouted far afield of their home on the plain of Themiscyra and founded new cities such as Smyrna, Ephesus, Sinope, and Paphos. They eventually fought Greeks at the Battle of Thermodon and were defeated. Three shiploads of Amazon prisoners survived a shipwreck near the home of the Scythians, another tribe of legendary (but non-fictional) warriors. The two tribes intermarried and gave rise to a new warlike nation known as the Sarmatians. So says Herodotus, at least.