Yia! Hi dear friend, I’m Artemisia the Second. Here, let me kiss your cheek to greet you! Let me tell you about myself! I grew up as a princess from the Kingdom of Caria. When I was eighteen years old my father, the King, died and so my husband Mausolus and I became the new King and Queen. We moved to a city by the sea called Halicarnassus. We built amazing temples and statues and made the whole place really sparkle! I was always making special medicines using different kinds of plants, too.
When Mausolus died, I kept ruling on my own. But the people on the Island of Rhodes didn’t like a queen being in charge, so they sent soldiers to stop me. I tricked them with a clever surprise attack and won the battle! Then I sailed to Rhodes with my army to take over their whole kingdom instead!
I’m most famous for building a big and beautiful tomb for King Mausolus. People later called it a Mausoleum, and it was so pretty that it became one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World!
Stories of Queens 