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Description
Artemisia, named after the Goddess Artemis, sister of Apollo, is the only woman Herodotus attributes with the virtue of courage, or andreia, an almost impossible quality for a woman to possess since it literally meant 'manliness'.

She married the king of Halicarnassus in 500 BC, just prior to the Ionian Revolt that helped trigger the war between Greece and Persia. Her husband, whose name has been lost to history, probably died only a few years later. Taking to the throne herself, she made her name not as an ally of Greece, but as a loyal subject of Persia.

Her major claim to fame occurred during the battle of Salamis, which King Xerxes of Persia watched from his golden throne on the shore. Finding herself trapped between the deadly Greek triremes and the utterly bewildered Persian fleet, she determined to break out. Pursued by a trireme she calmly and expertly rammed a friendly ship blocking her exit, and made her escape. Believing her to be an ally, the trireme dropped its pursuit, while Xerxes, believing her to have sunk an enemy and exasperated at his own side's general incompetence, declared 'My men have become women, and women men'.

Needless to say the Athenians were not well pleased; they had offered an especially high reward for her capture because they could not believe a woman would join a war against them.

Description
Artemisia, named after the Goddess Artemis, sister of Apollo, is the only woman Herodotus attributes with the virtue of courage, or andreia, an almost impossible quality for a woman to possess since it literally meant 'manliness'.

She married the king of Halicarnassus in 500 BC, just prior to the Ionian Revolt that helped trigger the war between Greece and Persia. Her husband, whose name has been lost to history, probably died only a few years later. Taking to the throne herself, she made her name not as an ally of Greece, but as a loyal subject of Persia.

Her major claim to fame occurred during the battle of Salamis, which King Xerxes of Persia watched from his golden throne on the shore. Finding herself trapped between the deadly Greek triremes and the utterly bewildered Persian fleet, she determined to break out. Pursued by a trireme she calmly and expertly rammed a friendly ship blocking her exit, and made her escape. Believing her to be an ally, the trireme dropped its pursuit, while Xerxes, believing her to have sunk an enemy and exasperated at his own side's general incompetence, declared 'My men have become women, and women men'.

Needless to say the Athenians were not well pleased; they had offered an especially high reward for her capture because they could not believe a woman would join a war against them.