Artemisia of Halicarnassus: Herodotus' Excellent Counsel

Abstract

ABSTRACT:Numerous ancient sources attest that Artemisia of Halicarnassus, a fifth-century bce tyrant whose polis came under Persian rule in 524 bce, figures prominently in Xerxes' naval campaign against Greece. At least since Pompeius Trogus' first-century bce Philippic History, interpretations of Artemisia have juxtaposed her "virile courage" (uirilem audaciam) with Xerxes' "womanish fear" (muliebrem timorem) primarily as a means of belittling the effeminate non-Greeks. My paper argues that although Herodotus is aware of such interpretations of Artemisia, he depicts her primarily as an excellent counsel, a woman who is not only brave in battle, but who is a wonder primarily because of her intellectual excellences in deliberative rhetoric and "geo-political" strategy in the Greco-Persian world.