Female Warriors Artemisia I Of Caria
Wikimedia CommonsA coin depicting Artemisia I of Caria.
Artemisia I of Caria was a cunning and brave woman who ruled as Queen of the Anatolian region of Caria. Her name comes from the Goddess Artemis, and it has been said that the warrior-queen is one of the only women of the time to have truly had the “virtue of courage.”
She married an unidentified man, but within a few years he died and Artemisia ruled as regent for her young son. At the time, Greece and Persia were at war with each other and Artemisia chose to align herself with the Persians.
Artemisia is most known for her role in the Battle of Salamis in 480 B.C. She found herself trapped by a deadly Greek and Persian fleet of ships and literally broke her way out. She rammed her ship into the side of one of her own allied ships in an effort to confuse the enemies. It worked. Upon seeing this attack on the Persians, the Greeks mistakenly thought Artemisia’s ship was on their side so they let her slip through.
Warner Bros./Legendary PicturesActress Eva Green as Artemisia I of Caria in the 2014 movie 300: Rise of an Empire.
During this battle, she also gave Persian king Xerxes expert advice and escorted his sons to safety once the fighting was over. In the book Histories, writer Herodotus of Halicarnassus praised Artemisia, saying:
I pass over all the other officers [of the Persians] because there is no need for me to mention them, except for Artemisia, because I find it particularly remarkable that a woman should have taken part in the expedition against Greece. She took over the tyranny after her husband’s death, and although she had a grown-up son and did not have to join the expedition, her manly courage impelled her to do so…Hers was the second most famous squadron in the entire navy, after the one from Sidon. None of Xerxes’ allies gave him better advice than her.
After the Battle of Salamis, the name Artemisia I of Caria pretty much disappears from the historical record, which only adds another layer of mystery surrounding this warrior woman.
But her legacy lives on, and indeed greatly impacted her enemies. During the battle, Xerxes, king of Persia, remarked on Artemisia’s cunning and his own fleet’s incompetence: “My men have become women, and women men.”
After this look at women warriors, check out these 12 badass Revolutionary War women that you’ve probably never heard of. Then, take a look at the story of the Viking Shieldmaidens, the fearsome warrior women.
