It never fails. I write about not blogging and then I get the itch to blog.
Tonight we watched Engineering an Empire; Persia. It was supposed to be Rome but that's the one episode I don't have...Yet. So Catherine had her pick of Carthage, Persia and others. She went for Persia. She decided Cyrus the Great was a most excellent guy and the Persians might just be more interesting than the Greeks. She also learned that Xerxes had a female general Atemisia. I learned while googling Artemisia that Persian female military commanders weren't especially rare! Indeed, google 'ancient female military' and all sorts of interesting hints start to pop up about female warriors.
You assume that because you never heard about the women in history that they simply weren't there. You start to look and they begin to pop up everywhere.
A side note: While googling for General Artemisia I happily found information on the post-Renaissance artist Artemisia. I'll have to introduce Cathrine to her as well.
3 comments:
Yes! Cyrus the Great! We read a bio about him a number of years ago. It was by ... the name's not coming to me ... a few of his books were converted into Landmark book for kids ... Lamb! Harold Lamb, I believe. I read it aloud and we did the whole map thing, etc., as he traveled from China to Lydia (Turkey). Cyrus. Very interesting reign. I'll have to look into Artemisia. I don't remember if she was in the book or not.
Oops. That was me with that first comment.
Tammy at HS Comments on the Fly
Look for Artemisia of Halicarnassus. She was also an Ionian Greek Queen under Xerxes.
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