A victorious warrior queen plunges the severed head of history's greatest conqueror into a vessel of human blood, telling him to drink his fill. This deep dive examines Tomyris, the sixth-century BC ruler of the Massagetae who went head to head with Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian Empire.

Leading a nomadic confederation on the Eurasian steppe, Tomyris rejected Cyrus's marriage proposal, recognizing it as a demand for subjugation. When his forces used a wine trap to capture and destroy part of her army, including her son, the border conflict became a mother's vendetta.

• The mounted archer tactics that obliterated the Persian vanguard
• Cyrus's banquet trap exploiting a culture with no defense against wine
• The death of her son Spargapises and her blood oath by the sun
• The conflicting account of Ctesias, ...