Artemisia of Halicarnassus: Herodotus’ excellent counsel.

Classical World: A Quarterly Journal on Antiquity 116:147–172 (2023)
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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.

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Thornton Lockwood
Quinnipiac University

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