Female Warriors, Vol. 1 (of 2): Memorials of Female Valour and Heroism, from the Mythological Ages to the Present Era.Clayton, Ellen C. (Ellen Creathorne)
History
Female Warriors, Vol. 1 (of 2): Memorials of Female Valour and Heroism, from the Mythological Ages to the Present Era.
Clayton, Ellen C. (Ellen Creathorne)
Amazons; Women -- Biography; Women soldiers
Demeratus, Cleomenes' partner in the throne, is said by some historians
to have accompanied this expedition; and they relate that whilst
Cleomenes was besieging the walls, Demeratus attacked the Pamphyliacum,
or Citadel, whence he was driven with great loss by Telesilla and her
companions. This, however, is acknowledged to be mere tradition,
for Herodotus says that the two kings, having quarrelled some years
previously, never engaged together in the same war.
Grote, for an even better reason, disbelieves the entire story, which,
he says, "is probably a myth, generated by the desire to embody in
detail the dictum of the oracle a little before, about 'the female
conquering the male.'" Without for a moment denying that the Argeian
women could or would have achieved the great deeds ascribed to them,
he doubts their having done so, because, says he, the siege never took
place at all.
Great honours, so runs the legend, were paid to Telesilla and her brave
companions, many of whom fell in the conflict. A statue of the poetess
was erected by the grateful citizens and placed in the Temple of Venus.
* * * * *
The terrible danger of the Persian invasion caused all the internal
wranglings and disputes of the Greeks to be hushed for a time. In the
year B.C. 480, the Great King declared war on the (temporarily) united
states of Greece, and sailed thither with a gigantic and overwhelming
army and navy. Amongst the tributary sovereigns who followed him in
this expedition was Artemisia, Queen of Caria. She was daughter of
King Lygdamis, and her husband, the late king, having died while her
son was a minor, Artemisia conducted, _pro. tem._, the government of
Halicarnassus, Cos, Nisiras, and Calydne. Though she brought only five
ships to the Greek war, they were almost the lightest and best equipped
of any in the fleet.
Herodotus says that amongst all the Persian commanders, naval or
military, there was not one who gave the king such good advice as this
heroine; but King Xerxes was not at that time wise enough to profit
by her counsels. She was the only one who had the courage to raise
her voice against the proposed sea-fight at Salamis, which Xerxes was
resolved to risk.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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