The Amazons of Themyscira were created by five of the goddesses of Olympus, Artemis, Aphrodite, Demeter, Hestia, and chief among them, Athena. Victims of men's violence against women, particularly the gods, were reborn again within a utopia of their own control. For millenia, they existed, they existed in peace, hidden away from the horrors of man's world.
Until Ares arrived.
Ares would convince Heracles to wage war on the Amazons after Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, rejected his advances. Heracles would rally up a legion of men and pillage the Amazons, Heracles subduing and raping Hippolyta (an act Ares would greatly disapprove of) and making the Amazons his slaves. Hippolyta pleads with the goddesses for help. Athena agrees to aid the Amazons, but only if they do not go against their purpose of creation by seeking revenge. When they agree to her terms, Athena frees the Amazons from their chains.
This uneasy peace would last. The Amazons grew weary of this peace, understanding that even in the new lives they had been given, they remained subservient to the world of man, that even the goddesses of Olympus, in all their power, in all their beauty, remained subservient to their will as well. This uneasy peace would reach its tipping point during the event known as the Twilight of the Gods. A powerful race of beings known as the gods of New Genesis would descend upon the Earth, claiming to be from a utopian society of blossoming forests, towering cities, and beautiful creatures. They hoped to conquer the gods of Olympus, Earth's most powerful pantheon, for their allyship in a war with their natural enemies, the gods of Apokalips. The war between the Olympians and the New Gods was brutal, leaving much of Earth in rubble.
The Amazons, however, sympathized with the plights of the New Gods. They saw the war as an opportunity to fight against their oppressors once more. Though Hippolyta sympathized with the majority who saw the war as a way to fight against their oppressors, she was terrified of the punishment that would befall upon her people, should they take up arms. Hippolyta's sister, Antiope, saw issue with this. Antiope would lead a faction of Amazons to take up arms against the Olympians alongside the New Gods.
When the New Gods fell before the Olympians' might, Antiope would be killed. Zeus would punish the Amazons by casting them away to Hades, a godsphere within the Anti-World ruled by its namesake, Hades. Hades, however, sympathized with the Amazonns. He, too, was dealt an unfair card by the Olympians, guarding what was known as Doom's Doorway. He gave the Themscirans the responsibility to guard Doom's Doorway as well as the ability to self govern within the spheres' hellish, demon-plauged lands.
For centuries, the Amazons of Themyscira live in a perfect state of harmony with their surroundings, fearing only the gods that cast them to these lands. Homosexuality is completely natural to them – while some Amazons are chaste, others have loving consorts. Their city is composed entirely of Greco-Roman architecture from 1200 BCE, and they wear Greek garb, togas, sandals, and period armor. They are fervently religious, worshipping their gods as living deities. Artemis is their primary goddess, and they worship her with a sacrifice of a deer. The Amazons celebrate their creation each year in a Feast of Five, remembering the goddesses who brought them to life.
Eventually, the queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta, would sculpt a child from clay. A male. Praying for the goddesses to hear her cries, she begged for them to breathe life into the sculpture, to create for them a savior that would guide their people out of Hades, back to the island that the goddesses had promised them. Taking pity on her most beautiful of creations, Artemis alone would breathe life into this clay child, the one and only son of Themyscira. Hippolyta would name the child Apollo, after Artemis' brother, and out of the symbollic hope that Apollo would lead them to see the overworld's sun once again. Apollo was taught in the ways of the Amazons, taught to love and be kind, yet Apollo was also taught that he was different. That he was to be a man. That he was to fight and conquer, despite the love that surrounded him always. Another factor to him being an outcast? Though a male at birth, Apollo would undergo female puberty, a fact that Hippolyta had greatly tried to disguise.
As a child, Apollo would be haunted by the ghost of Antiope. After an argument with her mother over Apollo's feeling as an outcast, Apollo would be guided by Antiope to Doom's Doorway. Here, Apollo would be reborn again, this time in Man's World. With a new name, one she had chosen herself: Diana, the roman form of the goddess who had imbued her with life in the first place. And now, with a new mission: The defense of all women and the slaughter of the gods that had ravaged her people.