Konstantinos Deligiorgis (PhD, University of Athens) will give the next Dialogos lecture, organized by The Netherlands Institute at Athens. Its subject is “The herodotian ‘amazonic’ Artemisia”.
In the eyes of Cicero and many others, Herodotus was the “pater Historiae”, father of History. Konstantinos Deligiorgis will investigate the dominant role of famous women in Herodotus’ Histories. Along with travels, descriptions, adventures and narratives these special women appear in his work with an enormous desire to approach, fascinate and, sometimes, terrify us.
The main aim of this talk is to examine the presence of Artemisia from Halicarnassus in the eighth Book of Histories and Herodotus’ depiction of her as having a man-like character and attitude, also comparing the legendary and uncivilized Amazones of the fourth herodotean Book. In these parallel stories, Herodotus shows how this ‘unnatural’ human behavior could gradually change and become more feminine. According to his view, during the battle of Salamis, Artemisia will save her life not because she fought heroically, like a man, but because she tricked her allies and enemies, like a cunning woman.