A Cunning Ploy By An Ancient Greek Pirate Queen
What happens when you ignore your only female advisor
The decision was probably made in seconds. As the wood of her ship, and the ships around her, splintered and broken apart. The screams of men mixed with the screaming of the wood, orders were yelled, panicked, words lost in the mayhem.
This was war but Artemisia had predicted this.
So why was she stuck in the middle of it on the losing side?
Described as a scheming pirate by some and an intelligent, brave woman by others, Artemisia was born in the fifth century BC, in Caria (which was south west of modern day Turkey) to a government official and a Cretan mother. Due to her good bloodlines, Artemisia was married off to the king of Halicarnassus. When her husband died, he left her with a son and the throne.
Artemisia became queen but she wasn’t keen on court life. She much preferred life at sea as a strategist and plunderer. As any queen would, Artemisia raged war on her rivals but she did it in her own way, commanding her fleet from her own ship.
Piracy wasn’t quite how we would recognise it back in Ancient Greece but Queen Artemisia is the earliest recorded female pirate.
She may not have been an outlaw or corsair, but Queen Artemisia attacked and plundered. Caria fell to Persian rule, making her technically Persian, but she was known to have attacked and robbed Persian ships.
Queen Artemisia is best known for two things; the Battle of Salamis and the taking of the city of Latmus. Her methods for taking the city were nothing but clever. Camping outside the city gates, she and her men staged a full festival. When the city residents opened the gates to join in and watch the dancers and singers, Artemisia and her men stormed through those open gates and took the city.
(Although some modern historians believe that this story should actually be attributed to Queen Artemisia II of the fourth century BC. Mix ups between the two women are common.)
In the late fifth century, King Xerxes was leading the Persians in war, determined to conquer the whole of Greece. His was a land-faring army, as the capital of Persia was landlocked, and so his navy was not only on the small side but also inexperienced, consisting of privately owned ships. However, Xerxes had a deep respect for Queen Artemisia which is probably why she was on his council of advisors. She was the only female advisor on his council.
Xerxes had taken Athens, his men were making their way across Greece, but for some reason the king had it in his head that he needed to defeat the Athenian navy. Perhaps to take away the threat of retaliation. In September 480 BC, he saw his chance.
A slave, escaped from the Athenian navy, arrived in camp and told Xerxes that the Greek navy was anchored in the straits of Salamis. If Xerxes attacked them now, they’d be trapped and easy to slaughter. Xerxes turned to his advisors and all them except for one told him to attack. Artemisia was the only one who cautioned him. She reminded him that he had Athens, he had what he wanted, why would he push his luck against a navy so much stronger?
The men, however, were drunk on power following all of their successes and Xerxes thanks Artemisia for her advice and then ignored her. The Greek army being anchored in the straits of Salamis, ripe for being caught unawares was just too good an opportunity to miss. Which of course meant that it was too good to be true.
The whole thing was a trap.
That escaped slave was a messenger disguised and sent by Greek general, Themistocles. So when the Persians arrived at the straits, three rows of ships deep, the Greek navy was waiting for them. By the time the Greek navy attacked, appearing from the back as well as the front, there was no escape.
There are no records of Artemisia hesitating in joining the Persians in battle, despite what she knew in her gut and the 10,000 drachmas the Greeks had put on her head. Artemisia and her ship, the Lykos, were in the middle row as the Battle of Salamis began around her, which is how she found herself trapped in the middle of a battle on the losing side. Queen Artemisia wasn’t one to roll over and take this so she swapped her flag from a Persian one to a Greek one and immediately attacked the nearest Persian ship.
Watching the battle from the safety of a nearby cliff with some of his men, King Xerxes was informed that the Lykos had defeated an enemy ship. His spotter had seen Artemisia’s ship but not her flag, he’d seen her take down a ship but not that it had been one of their own. He informed Xerxes of Artemisia’s victory and the king is reported as saying, “My men have become women and my women have become men.”
No one aboard the ship Artemisia attacked was left alive to tell of her betrayal. As far as we know, Xerxes never learned the truth but the Greeks had seen what she’d done.
The Greeks won the battle but what happened next for Artemisia isn’t clear. Herodotus wrote that Xerxes would later listen to Artemisia and actually take her advice on not engaging in battle with the Greeks after the fall out of Salamis. The records say that once her son took the throne, Artemisia then escorted Xerxes’ illegitimate sons to Ephesos (now modern Turkey) before she vanishes from the historical records. Much later, legend tells that she fell to her death after being rejected by a new love, but this is widely considered to be fiction devised to warn against wayward romance.
It’s likely that Artemisia simply lived out the rest of her life quietly but it’s nice to think that perhaps she made it back to the sea, changing her flag and sailing away.
