Heinrich von Kleist totally called that Penthesilea hat the hots for Achilles, and then she unintentionally tore him apart in combat.

YOU GUYS, the ancient situation is really a lot more complicated than Mayor's making out here. In the first place, there's a LOT less evidence from the ancient world for female homosexuality than there is for male homosexuality. Really, there are only a few scraps. BUT there's also a long tradition of those who are oblivious about and/or hostile towards female homoeroticism interpreting ancient texts, so subtler hints towards girl-on-girl sexiness have often gone ignored. What Mayor doesn't mention here is that there IS a whole bunch of homosexiness surrounding Amazons in ancient literature, particularly **Roman** literature (and the popular imagination doesn't associate Romans with Amazons to the same extent as Greeks, but Roman literature gets so many of its cues from Greek literature, a lot less of which survives) - but it isn't explicit. Nonetheless, there's a nexus in the ancient imagination between Amazons & huntresses, which means you get a bunch of composite huntress-Amazon-companion of Diana type figures, and many of these women are portrayed as rejecting sex with men & hanging out in the woods together.

read what Mayor actually said: "The one interesting artistic bit of evidence for [Amazon lesbians] that I did find is a vase that shows a Thracian huntress giving a love gift to the Queen of the Amazons, Penthesilea. That's a strong indication that at least someone thought of the idea of a love affair between Amazons. But just because we don't have any written evidence and only that one unique vase doesn't preclude that Amazons might have had relations with each other."