Turning now from myth to history, we meet two genuine warrior queens of antiquity who won renown for their naval expertise and bold exploits at sea. One was the Persian admiral Artemisia, and the other a pirate queen of Illyria. The Greeks thought of Queen Artemisia I of Halicarnassus as a kind of maritime Amazon. She was said to sport attire typical of Persian men, similar to the dress of Amazons in Greek vase paintings—a long-sleeved patterned tunic and trousers—and to be armed with a dagger and sword. Herodotus, a native of her city, proudly recounted Artemisia’s illustrious deeds in detail. An ally and trusted adviser of Xerxes during the Persian invasion of Greece, Artemisia was the king’s only female admiral. She contributed five warships from Caria to the Persian fleet and distinguished herself in a naval encounter at Euboea and at the great sea battle at Salamis in 480 BC. Although she had wisely warned Xerxes to avoid the naval engagement at Salamis, when the battle took place Artemisa commanded her warship with outstanding shrewdness and courage, saving her own ship by sinking another. According to Plutarch, she also recovered the body of Xerxes’s brother Ariamenes from the wreckage of his ship.
The Greeks offered a reward of ten thousand drachmas for her capture alive, but after the Greek victory at Salamis Artemisia escaped to Ephesus, a place with deep Amazonian connections. (Some survivors of the failed Amazon invasion of Athens took refuge in Ephesus, said to have been founded by Amazons.) The Greeks were the ultimate victors, but they admired Artemisia’s fortitude and heroic seamanship.13
Artemisia I is sometimes confused with another powerful Persian queen of Halicarnassus, Artemisia II, who conquered the island of Rhodes and built the celebrated Mausoleum decorated with Amazons (353-350 BC). A sensational archaeological discovery of 1857 connects the two warrior queens of Caria. Archaeologists excavating the ruins of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus discovered a vase of translucent stone (about twelve inches high) bearing the royal inscription “Xerxes, the Great King” in Egyptian hieroglyphs, in Old Persian Elamite, and in Babylonian cuneiform. This elegant alabaster perfume jar had been an intimate possession of Artemisia I, a costly gift from the grateful Xerxes to his famous female naval commander. The vase of Artemisia had been passed down in the royal Carian family, coming into the hands of her namesake, Artemisia II, more than a century after the Battle of Salamis.14
World History
