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>Barry Strauss: So often in history, people are hidden in plain sight. When I wrote a book some years ago on the Battle of Salamis, I discovered that the Persia

>Barry Strauss: So often in history, people are hidden in plain sight. When I wrote a book some years ago on the Battle of Salamis, I discovered that the Persians had a female admiral named Artemisia. I was taken aback. I thought, "Whoa! How many female admirals are there running around in the ancient world? Why hasn't anybody noticed this?" It strains credulity that he claims Artemisia is a figure that was "hidden in plain sight", considering she was prominently featured in Herodotus account of the battle[1], and anyone reading about the Battle of Salamis today is either reading Herodotus or a paraphrase of Herodotus. [1] Hdt 7.99, 8.68, 8.69 and 8.87, the last of which gives an account of her exploits during the battle: http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0016.tlg001.perseus-eng1:8.87.1 http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0016.t...

philipov 5y ago
But isn't that exactly what "in plain sight" means? If people are reading it, but no one is talking about it or taking notice, it becomes hidden to the much vaster population who are reading the summaries of Herodotus instead of the original source.
- halJordan 5y ago
  I don’t really get this. People actively refuse to read literary classics when they are mandated reading. If we can’t even have a conversation about the brilliance of Shakespeare because people deny it’s worth then how can you blame historians for not proselytizing niche trivia when the audience denies literacy in general. They’d be laughed out of the room, nerds frequently are. The same people feigning interest in Artemisia are the same ones who will tell you education is worthless and a scam.
Apocryphon 5y ago
She was so prominent that Eva Green played her as the main character of the forgotten sequel to 300! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/300:_Rise_of_an_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/300:_Rise_of_an_Empire
- thedailymail 5y ago
  To be fair to the author, his book was published in 2005, well ahead of 300: Rise of an Empire (2014) and a year prior to the original 300 film (2006).

philipov 5y ago

But isn't that exactly what "in plain sight" means? If people are reading it, but no one is talking about it or taking notice, it becomes hidden to the much vaster population who are reading the summaries of Herodotus instead of the original source.

halJordan 5y ago
I don’t really get this. People actively refuse to read literary classics when they are mandated reading. If we can’t even have a conversation about the brilliance of Shakespeare because people deny it’s worth then how can you blame historians for not proselytizing niche trivia when the audience denies literacy in general. They’d be laughed out of the room, nerds frequently are. The same people feigning interest in Artemisia are the same ones who will tell you education is worthless and a scam.

Apocryphon 5y ago

She was so prominent that Eva Green played her as the main character of the forgotten sequel to 300! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/300:_Rise_of_an_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/300:_Rise_of_an_Empire

thedailymail 5y ago
To be fair to the author, his book was published in 2005, well ahead of 300: Rise of an Empire (2014) and a year prior to the original 300 film (2006).