3,000 years ago a select few of the Olympian gods, which included Artemis, Athena, Hestia, Demeter and Aphrodite, took the souls of women slain throughout time by the hands of men and sent them to the bottom of the Aegean Sea.

Each of the goddesses that created the Amazons blessed them with personalized gifts: hunting skills (Artemis), wisdom (Athena), warm homes (Hestia), plentiful harvests (Demeter), and beauty inside and out (Aphrodite).

The Amazons eventually founded the city of Themyscira in Anatolia and became known as fierce warriors of peace in Turkey, Greece, and Rome.

When Heracles first approached the Amazons seeking battle, Hippolyta met him outside the city gates and tried to reason with him for peaceful negotiations.

Still wishing peace, Hippolyta invited Heracles and his men into their city to celebrate a potential friendship with a feast.

Breaking Hippolyta's oath to Athena, the Amazons began slaughtering their captors but were upset to find that Heracles and his general Theseus had returned to their homelands.

Though Hippolyta agreed to the goddess' wishes, her sister Antiope scoffed at Athena for being angered at them for killing their rapist captors.

[3] Philippus and the remaining faithful Amazons then went to the sea shore where the Olympian Gods told them their punishment for going against their ideals.

Philippus was constantly at odds with Hippolyta's personal bodyguards known as The Circle: Alkyone, Myrto, Charis, and Philomela.

When Hippolyta was given her daughter Diana as a gift from the gods Philippus openly loved the new Princess as did most of the Amazons on the island.

When Philippus suspected Alkyone was going to kill Diana while Hippolyta slept, she attempted to stop them beforehand but was overwhelmed by them instead.

When she regained her physical composure Philippus called for the royal guard and had them imprison Hippolyta's bodyguards forever.

Resentful at the presence of a man on the island due to her previous rape and slavery at the hands of Herakles' men thousands of years prior, Philippus was openly vocal about wanting Steve killed.

[6] When Hippolyta defied the Olympian, Philippus advised the Queen not to put the rest of the island at risk.

For defying the gods Diana was ordered to go into Doom's Doorway to defeat the creatures there on her way to an ultimate truth.

Diana as Wonder Woman was able to clear things up but the event left a scar on the trust the Amazons had offered the outside world.

During the battle Circe double-crossed the Banas and sent the entire island of Themyscira into a demon dimension along with both tribes of Amazons.

Philippus was instructed to place deadfalls along the contest route to slow down Diana so that others might have a chance at winning.

Later, when Hippolyta discovered her plotting caused the death of Artemis her shame grew to the point where she felt she couldn't lead her people anymore.

When Diana refused to take over rule of the island Philippus reluctantly continued to serve as regent Queen.

To end the war, Diana and Hippolyta denounced their crowns and gave over the island to Philippus and a resurrected Artemis to act as co-rulers.

When the alien being Imperiex invaded Earth during the Our Worlds at War storyline the Amazons joined in the battle which led to Hippolyta's death.

satellite called Brother Eye, a military strike was made against Themyscira in an attempt at Amazon genocide.

A large swarm of OMAC units were sent to the island and began to attack the Amazons as part of the events of Infinite Crisis.

[12] Circe informed the Amazons that Diana was being illegally detained by the U.S. government and tortured until she gave them the secrets of the Purple Ray.

Artemis and Philippus were assigned to oversee the battle, but soon lost faith in Hippolyta when they discovered some of her actions against Man's World proved to be less honorable.

Due to their failure to follow-through in stopping Hippolyta during the war, a disguised Granny Goodness cursed all of the Amazons by erasing their memories and scattering them across the globe with false personas.

As a Themyscirian Amazon she also possesses immortality that allows her to live indefinitely in a youthful form, but does leave her open to potential injury and death depending on her actions.

As shown by fellow members of her tribe, she has the capability to break apart steel and concrete with her bare hands,[17] jump over 12 feet from a standing position,[18] has a high durability factor,[5] enhanced healing,[19] and the ability to absorb and process a vast amount of knowledge in a short period of time.

During writer John Byrne's time on the comic it was stated that this is a very sacred ritual to the Themyscirians, only to be used in the most dire of circumstances.