Artemisia I of Caria (, ; fl. 480 BC) was a queen of the ancient Greek city-state of Halicarnassus, which is now in Bodrum, Turkey. She was also queen of the nearby islands of Kos, Nisyros and Kalymnos, within the Achaemenid satrapy of Caria, in about 480 BC. She fought as an ally of Xerxes I, King of Persia against the independent Greek city states during the second Persian invasion of Greece. She personally commanded ships at the naval battle of Artemisium and at the naval Battle of Salamis in 480 BC. She is mostly known through the writings of Herodotus, himself a native of Halicarnassus, who praises her courage and relates the respect in which she was held by Xerxes.
Family
Artemisia's father was the satrap of Halicarnassus, Lygdamis I () and her mother was from the island of Crete. She took the throne after the death of her husband, as she had a son, named Pisindelis (), who was still a youth. Artemisia's grandson, Lygdamis II (), was the satrap of Halicarnassus when Herodotus was exiled from there and the poet Panyasis () was sentenced to death, after the unsuccessful uprising against him.
Second Persian invasion of Greece
According to Thessalus, the King of Persia demanded earth and water from the Coans in 493 BC but they refused, and so he gave the island to Artemisia to be wasted. Artemisia led a fleet of ships to Cos to slaughter the Coans, but Thessalus claimed that Zeus intervened and Artemisia's ships were destroyed by lightning, and she was forced to retreat. However, she later returned and conquered them.
Battle of Salamis
Xerxes was induced by the message of Themistocles to attack the Greek fleet under unfavourable conditions, rather than sending a part of his ships to the Peloponnese and awaiting the dissolution of the Greek armies. Artemisia was the only one of Xerxes' naval commanders to advise against the action, then went on to earn her king's praise for her leadership in action during his fleet's defeat by the Greeks at the Battle of Salamis (September, 480 BC).
Preparations
thumb|Coinage of [[Caria at the time of Artemisia (c. 480–460 BC).]]
thumb|Coinage of [[Kaunos, Caria at the end of Artemisia's rule, and beginning of the rule of her son Pisindelis. Obv: Winged female figure running right, head left, holding kerykeion in her right hand, and a victory wreath in left. Rev: Baetyl in incuse square. Circa 470–450 BC.]]
Before the battle of Salamis, Xerxes gathered all his naval commanders and sent Mardonios to ask whether or not he should fight a naval battle.
All the commanders advised him to fight a naval battle except Artemisia.
As Herodotus tells it, she told Mardonios:
<blockquote>Tell the King to spare his ships and not do a naval battle because our enemies are much stronger than us in the sea, as men are to women. And why does he need to risk a naval battle? Athens for which he did undertake this expedition is his and the rest of Greece too. No man can stand against him and they who once resisted, were destroyed.
If Xerxes chose not to rush into a naval encounter, but instead kept his ships close to the shore and either stayed there or moved them towards the Peloponnese, victory would be his. The Greeks can't hold out against him for very long. They will leave for their cities, because they don't have food in store on this island, as I have learned, and when our army will march against the Peloponnese they who have come from there will become worried and they will not stay here to fight to defend Athens.
But if he hurries to engage I am afraid that the navy will be defeated and the land-forces will be weakened as well. In addition, he should also consider that he has certain untrustworthy allies, like the Egyptians, the Cyprians, the Kilikians and the Pamphylians, who are completely useless.</blockquote>
Xerxes was pleased with her advice and while he already held her in great esteem he now praised her further. Despite this, he gave orders to follow the advice of the rest of his commanders. Xerxes thought that at the naval battle of Artemisium his men acted like cowards because he was not there to watch them. But this time he would watch the battle himself to ensure they would act bravely.
Plutarch, in On the Malice of Herodotus, believe that Herodotus wrote that because he just wanted verses in order to make Artemisia look like a Sibyl, who was prophesying of things to come.