After the calamitous issue of the battle of Salamis, Xerxes, having learned by hard experience that the insight of such a woman as Artemisia was more to be depended upon than the wisdom of his male advisers, once more sends for Artemisia and takes counsel with her. "When Xerxes was taking counsel with those of the Persians who were called to be his advisers, it seemed good to him to send for Artemisia also to give him counsel, because at the former time she alone had showed herself to have perception of that which ought to be done. So when Artemisia had come, Xerxes removed from him all the rest and spoke to her thus: 'Mardonius bids me stay here and make an attempt on the Peloponnesus, saying that the Persians and the land army are not guilty of any share in my calamity and that they would gladly give me proof of this. He bids me, therefore, either do this, or, if not, he desires himself to choose thirty myriads from the army and to deliver over to me Hellas reduced to subjection; and he bids me withdraw with the rest of the army to my own abode. So now advise me which of these things I shall do.' She spoke these words: 'O king! it seems good to me that thou shouldst retire back and leave Mardonius here, if he desires it, and undertakes to do this. If Mardonius suffer any disaster, no account will be made; and if the Hellenes conquer, they gain a victory which is no victory, having destroyed one who is but thy slave. Thou, however, wilt retire, having done that for which thou didst make thy march--that is to say, having delivered Athens to the fire,' With this advice Xerxes was greatly pleased, since she succeeded in saying that very thing which he himself was meaning to do. He commended Artemisia, therefore, and sent her away to conduct his sons to Ephesus, for there were certain sons of his who accompanied him." This time Xerxes took the advice of Artemisia, and left Mardonius with three hundred thousand men to carry on the campaign, while he himself, with the greater part of his forces which had survived, retired to Persia. Artemisia, having won great glory by her valor and wisdom returned to her own dominions, and we know nothing authentic as to her later life. So queenly a woman, however, could not escape the Greek fondness for manufacturing marvellous stories concerning the great; and Ptolemy Hephaestion, a writer who mingles little fact with much fancy in his works, preserves a tradition that Artemisia came to her end in a most romantic manner. During her later years, she conceived a violent attachment for Dardanus, a beautiful youth of Abydos. As her passion was not returned, she avenged herself by putting out his eyes while he slept. This excited the anger of the gods, and in obedience to an oracle she, like the traditional Sappho, threw herself down from the Lover's Leap of Leucate.