![]() Herodotos tells us that, according to one legend he had heard, after the men watching with him confirmed that the ship he had seen was indeed Artemisia’s, Xerxes exclaimed, “My men have become women, and my women men!”Īrtemisia I seems have reigned until around 460 BC or thereabouts, meaning she ruled about twenty-four years. Herodotos tells us that Xerxes I himself, watching the battle from atop a mountain, saw Artemisia I’s ship ram another ship, but mistook the ship she had rammed for a Greek ship. The Athenian ship fell for her ruse, allowing her and her crew to escape the battle. In response, she ordered her crew to ram one of the Persian ships so the Greeks would think she was on their side. Herodotos tells us that she fought bravely, but, after it became clear that the Persians were going to lose the battle, Artemisia I found her ship being pursued by an Athenian tririme. Herodotos tells us in Book Eight of his Histories that Artemisia I fought for the Persians in the Battle of Salamis in September 480 BC. ![]() Perhaps partly out of patriotic sentiment, Herodotos gives an extremely favorable portrayal of Artemisia and gives her pride of place in his account of the Greco-Persian Wars. Artemisia I would have been the only ruler of Karia Herodotos knew for his entire childhood and early adulthood. 484 – c. 425 BC) in his book The Histories.Īs I discuss in this article I wrote in September 2019, Herodotos was born in the city of Halikarnassos, which was, at the time of his birth in around 484 BC, the capital of Karia. She is written about extensively by the Greek historian Herodotos of Halikarnassos (lived c. Queen Artemisia I of Karia became the Greek queen of the Persian satrapy of Karia in around 484 BC immediately following the death of her husband, the former ruler of Karia. I am sure there are probably a few others that I have missed as well. For the main part of this list, I am confining myself strictly to Greek female rulers who ruled in their own names in Greece or western Asia Minor during the Classical and Hellenistic Periods, although there will be section at the end briefly listing some others who ruled outside of Greece. Many of the others on this list, such as Kratesipolis of Makedonia, are fairly obscure, but deserve more attention. Several of the ancient Greek female rulers on this list, such as Artemisia I and Artemisia II of Karia, are still relatively famous today. Although female rulers were certainly very rare in ancient Greece compared to the number of male rulers, there were, in fact, surprisingly many of them overall. Nonetheless, the picture we have of women in ancient Greece being totally excluded from any semblance of power is not completely accurate. To a large extent, it is true that the rights of women in ancient Greece were extremely restricted. Finally, Heroic Rulers demonstrates that monarchy, which is generally thought to have disappeared before the end of the archaic period, remained a valid political option from the Early Iron Age through to the Hellenistic period.We are often accustomed to hearing how utterly oppressed women were in ancient Greece. ![]() Law, personified as 'king' ( nomos basileus), came to be seen as the ultimate source of sovereignty especially as expressed through the constitutional machinery of the city, and became an important balance and constraint for personal rule. Probing into ancient perspectives on the legitimacy and legality of rule, the title also explores the relationship between ruling and law. Heroic Rulers examines reasons why both personal and clan-based rule was particularly unstable and its core tension with the competitive nature of Greek society, so that the question of who had the most arete was an issue of debate both from within the ruling family and from other heroic aspirants. It looks at how a common heroic ideology among rulers was based upon excellence, or arete, and also surveys dynastic ruling, where rule was in some sense shared within the family or clan. With an in-depth exploration of rule by a single man and how this was seen as heroic activity, the title challenges orthodox views of ruling in the ancient world and breaks down traditional ideas about the relationship between so-called hereditary rule and tyranny.
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