Penthesĭlēa

, a queen of the Amazons, daughter of Mars by Otrera, or Orithya. She came to a ist Priam in the last years of the Trojan war, and fought against Achilles, by whom she was slain. The hero was so struck with the beauty of Pen the sile a, when he stripped her of her arms, that he even shed tears for having too violently sacrificed her to his fury. Thersites laughed at the partiality of the hero, for which ridicule he was instantly killed. Lycophron says that Achilles slew Thersites because he had put out the eyes of Pen the sile a when she was yet alive. The scholiast of Lycophron differs from that opinion, and declares, that it was commonly believed that Achilles offered violence to the body of Pen the sile a when she was dead, and that Thersites was killed because he had reproached the hero for this infamous action, in the presence of all the Greeks. The death of Thersites so offended Diomedes that he dragged the body of Pen the sile a out of the camp, and threw it into the Scamander. It is generally supposed that Achilles was enamoured of the Amazon before he fought with her, and that she had by him a son called Cayster. Dictys Cretensis , bks. 3 & 4.— Pausanias , bk. 10 , ch. 31 .— Quintus Calaber [Smyrnæus] , bk. 1 .— Virgil , Æneid , bk. 1 , li. 495 ; bk. 11 , li. 662 .— Dares Phrygius. — Lycophron , Cas sandra , li. 995 , . — Hyginus , fable 112.