Artemisia I was a queen of the ancient Greek city-state of Halicarnassus, which is now in Bodrum, present-day Turkey.
The Kingdom of Halicarnassus was part of the wider region of Caria.
She was also queen of the nearby islands of Kos, Nisyros and Kalymnos within the Achaemenid province of Caria (c. 480 BC).
Queen Artemisia I was of Carian-Greek ethnicity by her father Lygdamis I (r. 520-484 BC), and half-Cretan by her mother.
The Lygdamid Dynasty (c. 520-450 BC) was a dynasty in the region of Caria following the conquests of Cyrus the Great (r. 550-530 BC) through his general Harpagus.
Artemisia I took the throne after the death of her husband. Her son, Pisindelis, was still a youth.
Her grandson, Lygdamis II, was the governor of Halicarnassus when Greek historian and geographer, Herodotus, was exiled from there and the poet Panyasis was sentenced to death, after the unsuccessful uprising against him.
Herodotus' uncle was executed for plotting to kill Lygdamis, for which his family was exiled to the island of Samos.
She fought as an ally of Xerxes I, King of Persia against the independent Greek city states during the second Persian invasion of Greece.
Persia is the setting for the story of Queen Esther who was chosen by Xerxes to succeed Vashti as queen, and the opening scene in the account of The Book of Nehemiah. Esther is hailed for her courage and for working to save the Jews from eradication.
Plutarch, in his work Parallel Lives, says that it was Artemisia who recognised the body of Xerxes' brother, Ariamenes (Herodotus says that his name was Ariabignes), floating amongst the shipwrecks, and brought the body back to Xerxes.
Plutarch mocks Herodotus' writing, since he thinks that Xerxes would have brought women with him from Susa, the ancient capital of the Elamite empire situated on the plain of Iranian Khuzestan, in case his son needed female attendants.
The following year the remainder of the Persian army was defeated at the Battle of Plataea and the Persian navy at the Battle of Mycale.
King Xerxes succeeded to the throne of the Achaemenid dynasty of Persia upon the death of his father, Darius the Great (522-486 BC). His mother was Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus the Great, founder of the Achaemenid Persian empire, which continued to the time of Alexander the Great.
He was designated as his father’s successor by Darius himself, whose reign had ended as rebellions were breaking out throughout his empire.
After suppressing the revolt in Egypt with great violence and destruction, King Xerxes levied a navy from Egypt and his Greek allies, and began to formulate plans to invade Attica.
However, the tide of war turned swiftly when Xerxes’ fleet was annihilated at the subsequent naval Battle of Salamis. His commander in Greece, Mardonius, negotiated with Athens to no avail. The war was resumed and Persia was finally defeated at the battle of Plataea.
The Athenians and many newly won deserters from Persia followed up their success by invading the area of the Eurymedon River thus ending Persia’s hopes for European conquest. Xerxes retired to his palaces at Persepolis and Susa.
Queen Artemisia I is most famous for her role in the naval Battle of Salamis, a naval battle fought in 480 BC between an alliance of Greek city-states under Themistocles, and the Achaemenid Empire under King Xerxes, in which she fought for the Persians.
She is mostly known through the writings of Herodotus, himself a native of Halicarnassus, who praises her courage and relates the respect in which she was held by Xerxes.
Her ships were reputed the best in the whole fleet after the ships of Sidon; and of all his allies she gave the king the best counsels. The cities, whereof I said she was the leader, are all of Dorian stock, as I can show, the Halicarnassians being of Troezen, and the rest of Epidaurus. -Herodotus
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