The daughter of Lygdamis of Halicarnassus, reigned over Halicarnassus, and also over Cos and other adjacent islands. She joined the fleet of Xerxes, when he invaded Greece, with five vessels, the best equipped of the whole fleet after those of the Sidonians; and she displayed so much valour and skill at the battle of Salamis as to elicit from Xerxes the wellknown remark that the men had acted like women in the fight and the women like men. The Athenians, indignant that a woman should appear in arms against them, offered a reward of 10,000 drachmae to any one who should take her prisoner. She, however, escaped after the action (Herod.vii. 99; viii. 88Herod., 93). If we are to believe Ptolemy Hephaestion, a writer who mixed up many fables with some truth, Artemisia subsequently conceived an attachment for a youth of Abydos, named Dardanus; but, not meeting with a return for her passion, she put out his eyes while he slept, and then threw herself down from the Lover's Leap at the promontory of Leucaté.(Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, 1898)