Artemisia I of Caria

 Artemisia I of Caria

You may remember Artemisia of Caria from the movie 300: Rise of an Empire. If you haven’t seen 300, the plot consists of 300 men in the Ancient Greek city-state of Sparta pointing their rock hard pecs at each other and making poor military decisions. The foe, this time, is Artemisia.

You can tell she’s a baddie right away, because she wears lots of eyeliner, and had darker hair than the Spartan women  , and you can tell she is meant to be respected as ‘one of the boys’ and a soldier in her own right, because there’s a whole introductory montage to show how bloodthirsty she is.

Artemisia lived in 5th century BC in the kingdom of Caria, in what is now the western bit of Turkey. She took over the rule of Caria after her husband died.

Artemisia was skilled military tactician, unlike the 300 , and the only female commander in the Greco-Persian wars.
She apparently would swap her ships’ Persian flag for Greek ones in the interests of sneakiness.

The Greeks were so keen to capture her that they put a 10,000 drachma reward on her head, which is worth at least a fiver in today’s money.

It is unclear whether or not she invited the leader of the Greek fleet, Themistocles to try and convince him to join forces with her through the power of her seduction and her sexy, swinging breast, an invention he refused after a quickie, leading her to swear bloody vengeance. Which , probably didn’t happen, but who knows? People in Ancient Greece must have had sex, so why not on ships in the middle of negotiations? 

The biggest battle Artemisia fought was in 480 BC, the battle of Salamis, in which the Greeks and Persians fought over a delicious platter of salami.

Artemisia had advised Xerxes against the battle, and was proven right when the Persians were tricked into entering the straits of Salamis and routed by the Greeks smaller, more agile ships.

Nevertheless, she escaped unscathed, possibly by ramming into fellow Persian ship so that the Greeks would think she was on their side, or so says the Greek historian Herodotus, a known messy baddie who lived for drama .

Whatever happened, Xerxes was pleased with her work, and said, ‘My men turned into women and my women into men !’ Good one , Xerxes.

So that’s Artemisia. She got job done with her Smokey eyeliner and her naval battling gumpshun as we all must in this life .

Source ~ Hannah Jewell ‘100 Nasty Women of History’