Artemisia (1)

The only female naval captain to fight for the Persians during the Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BCE.

Artemisia advised the Persian king, Xerxes, not to engage the Greeks in a sea battle for two reasons:

1. Artemisia reasoned that if the Persians attacked with their army instead of their navy, the Greeks would surrender the island of Salamis and retreat to defend the cities of the Peloponnesian Peninsula; they could then be defeated in smaller groups; and
2. Artemisia warned the king that the Greeks had a good navy and that many of his ships were manned by incompetents, such as the Egyptians and the Cypriots.

Xerxes, feeling confident after the sack of the city of Athens, did not heed Artemisia’s advise and engaged the Greek navy; although the Persians lost the sea battle, Artemisia distinguished herself when she employed a radical maneuver by ramming and sinking another Persian ship; the Greeks were clearly winning the sea-battle and in a desperate attempt to survive, Artemisia rammed a Persian trireme in order to be mistaken for one of the Greek ships and escape in the confusion.

King Xerxes was so impressed with Artemisia that he said that his men were becoming women and his women were becoming men.

The Athenians thought it was such an insult that a woman would make war on them, they offered a reward of ten thousand drakhmas (drachmas) to any captain who could take her alive; she escaped the battle and the reward was never collected.

Histories, book 8, chapters 68, 87, 88 and 93