Artemisia Of Caria Research Paper

Women in antiquity generally were a group that were fairly discriminated, repressed, and subjugated to different roles and standards than those of a man. This may be one of the reasons why scholars and historians would be surprised to find powerful women who challenged these social norms. One particular woman who did this was Artemisia of Caria who was admiral, and even queen, of the ancient Greek city-state of Halicarnassus and of the nearby island of Kos. Artemisia was a fearless, courageous woman whose brave characteristics can be tied to the mythic stories of the Amazons- mythical daughters of Ares, who dwelled beside the river Thermodon. Artemisia appears in today’s modern film, 300: Rise of an Empire, where the director Noam Murro and

She betrayed social norms built for women as she was not only a ruler, but a warrior and admiral. This is what made her even more different, and that was in the way she took leadership to not any individual, but a group of men. She fought against the King of Persia- Xerses 1, and the independent Greek city states during the second Persian invasion of Greece. Her great amount of power and leadership could be proved by how she directly commanded ships at the naval Battle of Salamis in 480 BCE. In this battle, Artemisia was the only one of Xerses’ naval commanders to advice against this strategy, then went on to earn her king’s admiration for her leadership by saving her own ship from sinking another. Through the historical facts, one will know that one important fact that the movie did not follow was the fact that she did not die in battle by Themistocles in the Battle of Salamis. This is one important fact that is later tied to the Western conceptions and even Amazon

In the beginning, Fanthom explains in her book, “Women in the Classical World: Image and Text”, how they were thought to be men because of their courage, and capacity to rule over many nations, and even enslave others. Yet, they were then believed to be women because of all of the destruction they brought with them. Amazons were dressed in Eastern garb and carried bows and arrows. Nonetheless, unlike Artemisia’s character, Amazons were not particular feminine and would cauterize their right breasts, so that they could be better fighters. However, the Amazons were continually transformed to fit the political views, and for this reason, in the fifth century, they were told to be beautiful warriors, but refused to become stereotypical wives. Fanthom explains how they were they represented a paradoxical combination of young attractiveness and a danger that must be repressed. In the book, “The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World”, Mayor similarly explains how the mythic Amazon represents a woman’s “true, free, soul, which must be given up or suppressed in patriarchal societies like Greece”. All of these characteristics were ones that could be associated to the film’s character Artemisia. Although she is not depicted as the queen that she also was, she is demonstrated as the brave, valiant warrior. Though she did portray the strong