Artemisia I

Artemisia daughter of Lygdamis, ruler of Halicarnassus under Achaemenid overlordship and contributor of five warships to Xerxes's fleet. Herodotus, himself a Halicarnassian born within a generation of the battle, admires her: she alone advised Xerxes against engaging at Salamis, and during the battle, hard-pressed by an Athenian trireme, she rammed and sank an allied Calyndian ship to make the pursuer believe she was on the Greek side — which saved her and deceived Xerxes watching from the shore into the famous quip that his men had become women and his women men. After the defeat she urged Xerxes to withdraw to Asia and leave Mardonius to continue the war on land, the advice he took.

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