While I love ancient history, it is a sad fact that women rarely figure prominently in historical events, and if they do appear it is often to their disadvantage.  This is one of the reasons why I love Queen Artemisia of Halicarnassus (sometimes referred to as Queen Artemisia of Caria).  She was a courageous leader, a cunning naval commander and had the audacity to stand up to Xerxes, who commanded one of the strongest armies of the time.

In 480 B.C.E. Xerxes, king of the Persians and their vassal states, was determined to invade and capture all of Greece.  He suceeded in capturing Athens, an important city-state.  He then set his sight on the Peloponnese, and in particular the island of Salamis, where he decided to set a naval battle.  Although Artemisia contributed only five ships out of the Persian navy of over a thousand, she still had a lot of clout with the king.  When he called a council to ‘discuss’ whether or not to battle the Greeks at Salamis (he’d pretty much decided on it already) she was the only commander to oppose the plan.

Herodotus is the main source of information about Artemisia, and in typical Herodotus fashion constructs flowery and elegant speeches of what he thought Artemisia and Xerxes would have said.  Artemisia basically said it was a ridiculous idea, as she had inside information that supplies were running low on Salamis.  If the Persians cut off the supply lines, the people on Salamis would starve and would surely surrender.  There was also the matter of naval battle.  The Greeks were arguably a stronger naval force, and although they had a much smaller navy, the site for battle was a narrow strip of water – the Persians’ superior numbers would not be an advantage against the Greek ships, which were more easily manoeuvrable.  Artemisia stated that the Greeks “were superior on the sea as men were superior to women”.  She says a lot of other disparaging things about a woman’s place in the grand scheme of things – obviously referring to other women, and not herself.  We shall never know what actually occurred, but it is entirely possible that she was this dismissive of women.  It is equally likely that she was parroting the beliefs of the time, as a woman who was equal to a man was a terrifying thing, but a woman who believed all women were equal to all men was blasphemy.  Lastly, she could have said nothing of the sort, and Herodotus just decided to make up what he thought would be pretty and appealing to the readers of the time.

Whatever she actually said, Artemisia’s meaning was clear – unlike all the other toadying men, she disagreed with Xerxes.  Herodotus is quite dismissive of most of the rest of the captains, so it is unclear whether they actually agreed with the plan, or were just agreeing with Xerxes so they could keep their heads (likely the latter.)  Apparently, all those who were kindly inclined towards Artemisia were horrified, and certain that she had signed her own death warrant.  Those who were opposed to her were delighted that she had crossed Xerxes and were certain that it was the end of her.  Xerxes surprised everyone by applauding Artemisia for her opinion, but in the end decided to go with the majority vote, i.e. his vote.  Why Artemisia got off scot-free where others might have been executed is unclear.  Was it because she was a woman, and therefore couldn’t be taken seriously enough for her dissent to be construed as an insult?  Artemisia had already proven her worth at a previous naval battle, Artemisium, and so surely her advice and her importance as a commander were clear to Xerxes.  So then, did Xerxes really value Artemisia’s advice, decided she made a valid point, but chose to continue with his plan anyway?   Without having a written account by Xerxes on the matter, of course we shall never know (this is a recurring theme in ancient history.)

Artemisia had a bounty on her life – secondary sources I have read differ as to whether she was to be taken in the battle dead or alive, and whether the bounty was 1,000 drachmas or 10,000.  (Herodotus claims it was 10,000).  Either way, the sum was enormous and Artemisia was a wanted woman.  Athens at the time was a very chauvinistic society, convinced of the superiority of men.  Women were to stay at home, do household chores and breed sons, and were certainly not allowed to participate in the masculine duties of politics and war (a fact Aristophanes uses in his comedy Lysistrata, set during the later Peloponnesian War).  Thus a woman waging war on them was an outrage and an insult against the noble Greek man, and the Greek pride must be avenged.

Artemisia may or may not have known of the bounty.  Certainly she would have been aware of the hatred the Greeks had against her, and she also knew it was likely that the Persians would be defeated, and if not, would suffer severe casualties.  And yet she still showed the ‘courage of a man’ and went in to battle, which was, as Artemisia predicted, a disaster for the Persian navy.

Artemisia found herself trapped, with enemy ships behind her and friendly ships blocking her escape.  She was pursued by the famed Aminias of Pallene, who supposedly was unaware of the identity of the commander of the ship he hunted.  If he had known it was Artemisia he was chasing, according to Herodotus he would not have stopped until he took her ship or lost his own.  Such was the enmity of the Greeks against Artemisia, and the size of the tantalising reward.

Artemisia rammed one of the friendly ships, perhaps by accident, perhaps to remove the obstacle in her escape path, or perhaps – as is what occurred – to fool the Greeks, in particular Aminias, into thinking she was one of their own or a deserter.  The chase ceased and Artemisia was allowed to escape.  The ship that she rammed belonged to King Damasithymus of  Calyndus, who Herodotus reports Artemisia had quarrelled with previously.  Whether she had planned to revenge herself upon him during battle, or that he just happened to be in the way, is, as Herodotus says, unknown.  Regardless of her motivation for ramming this particular ship, Artemisia sailed free and was in fact the only senior officer to survive the battle and save her own ship.

Another fortuitous outcome of Artemisia’s escape plan, was that Xerxes, watching the battlefield from afar, believed that Artemisia had rammed and sunk a Greek ship, and was full of praise for her.  This was when he (supposedly) uttered the famous: “My men have turned into women, and my women into men.”  Nor were there any survivors from the Calyndian ship to tell the truth of the matter, and so Artemisia was rewarded and honoured by Xerxes.

It is interesting to note that of the few famous women who have come down to us from ancient Greece, of I can think of only Sappho of Lesbos was admired for her talent as a woman alone.  For fictional characters such as Penelope in Homer’s Odyssey, her enduring popularity was based on her archetype as ‘the perfect wife’.  In the case of Artemisia, while she was unarguably a canny commander and a strong and courageous woman, she was renowned for skills that were admirable in a man.  Her fame comes from the fact that, although she was a woman, she was ‘more of a man’ than her fellows in the Persian Wars.

Despite this, I still find her an admirable figure in history.  She overcame great social restrictions on what was appropriate for women, and proved her worth in the only place that mattered to anyone, and that was only the domain of men – the battlefield.

Resources

For Herodotus’ version, I consulted the Loeb Herodotus IV, Books VIII – IX, trans. A. D. Godley, William Heinemann Ltd., London, 1969.  An online version can be found at http://www.stoa.org/diotima/anthology/artemisia.shtml (found via http://phdiva.blogspot.com/2009/02/artemisia-of-halicarnassus-in-suda_03.html)

For secondary sources, I looked at Linda Grant De Pauw’s Battle Cries and Lullabies: Women in War from Prehistory to the Present.  (University of Oaklahoma Press, 1998) and Peter Green’s The Greco-Persian Wars (University of California Press, 1998).

Barry Strauss’s The Battle of Salamis (Simon and Schuster, New York, 2004) has the most information about Artemisia I found.   The description of her clothing, jewellery and appearance on page 93 is what I based my drawings of her on.  He does, however, ask a lot of rhetorical “Why” questions in an attempt to get into the heads of the main people involved, and try to understand what their reactions to situations may have been.  While interesting, I get the impression that he has a major nerd crush on Artemisia.  This is not necessarily a bad thing, as I do too.

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