It's the ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes your host and in today's podcast

we are talking about a warrior queen who ruled over a people largely situated in the area

around what is today Turkmenistan, just east of the Caspian Sea. Now, Tamara's remarkable

figure we hear about her from the 5th century BC historian Herodotus and according to Herodotus,

she has an encounter, a military run-in, with the founder of the Persian Empire, the great

conqueror Cyrus the Great. But it doesn't end well for Cyrus as you're going to find out

in this podcast. Now, joining me to talk about the story of Tamiris and her legacy over

the centuries, I was delighted to be joined by Dr Christian Jerslev from Arrus University.

Christian was also formerly at the University of Edinburgh where he was my professor, so

it was great to get him on the show, it was great to catch up with him and to talk

of all things, Tamiris. Here's Christian. Christian, it's great to see you again, how have

you been? You have been good, thank you, how are you? Oh, I'm doing really well thanks,

I'm glad you're on the podcast and glad to see you again. Now, Tamiris, this is an

extraordinary warrior queen of antiquity. Yes, yes, she is an extremely important character

in ancient Greek and Roman literature, and she was really important for their fortword

back in ancient history. And who is our main source for the story of Tamiris? Our main

source of the story is Herodotus, who was active in the fifth century BC. And it's interesting

you mentioned Herodotus, because I'm just thinking like Artemisia, the bastard Salamis,

he talks quite a bit in his narrative about these extraordinary warrior queens. That's

very true, he has a penchant for talking about powerful women like Artemisia, and she was

of course the queen of Telekinesis Herodotus hometown. And she's important because she

fought on the Persian side in the war that Herodotus was writing about the Great Persian

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