Artemon of Magnesia

{{Short description|Ancient Greek writer on the virtues of women, of unknown time}}

Artemon ({{langx|grc|Ἀρτέμων}}) of Magnesia was a writer of ancient Greece known only as the author of a work on the virtues of women, the title of which is generally translated as Accounts of Deeds Done Courageously by Women (περὶ τῶν κατ' ἀρὴτν γυναιξὶ πεπραγματευμένων),{{cite book

| last =Turner

| first =Martha

| title =The Gospel According to Philip: The Sources and Coherence of an Early Christian Collection

| publisher =Brill Publishers

| date =2020

| pages =94

| language =English

| url =https://books.google.com/books?id=x_gFEAAAQBAJ

| isbn = 9789004439672

| accessdate=2024-03-28}} but also sometimes Tales of Feminine Virtue{{cite book

| editor-last =Edmonds

| editor-first =John Maxwell

| editor-link=John Maxwell Edmonds

| title =Lyra Graeca: Being the Remains of All the Greek Lyric Poets from Eumelus to Timotheus Excepting Pindar

| chapter=Sappho

| publisher =Heineman

| volume =1

| date =1922

| pages =179

| language =English

| url =https://books.google.com/books?id=-oBfAAAAMAAJ

| isbn =

| accessdate=2024-03-28}} or Stories of the Virtuous Exploits of Women.{{cite book

| last =Adams

| first =Sean A.

| title =The Genre of Acts and Collected Biography

| publisher =Cambridge University Press

| date =2013

| pages =94

| language =English

| url =https://books.google.com/books?id=_fPXAAAAQBAJ

| isbn = 9781107041042

| accessdate=2024-03-28}}

We know from later authors that the 4th-century Sophist Sopater of Apamea made an abstract of this work; both the original and the abstract are lost. Our knowledge of Artemon comes almost exclusively from one reference in the Bibliotheca of Photios I of Constantinople, in which he describes Sopater's abstract.Photios I of Constantinople, Bibliotheca p. 103 a;{{cite book

| last =Gera

| first =Deborah

| authorlink =

| title =Warrior Women: The Anonymous Tractatus De Mulieribus

| chapter =The Genre of DM

| publisher =Brill Publishers

| date =1997

| pages =34

| language =English

| url =https://books.google.com/books?id=992mDwAAQBAJ

| isbn = 9789004329881

| accessdate=2024-03-28}} Some scholars have suggested this work is one of the sources of the (still extant) anonymous work Women Intelligent and Courageous in Warfare.{{cite book

| last =McLeod

| first =Glenda

| title =Virtue and Venom: Catalogs of Women from Antiquity to the Renaissance

| chapter=A Fickle Thing is Woman

| publisher =University of Michigan Press

| date =1991

| pages =19

| language =English

| url =https://books.google.com/books?id=05L_e9HhnOEC

| isbn = 9780472102068

| accessdate=2024-03-28}}{{cite book

| last =Westermann

| first =Anton

| authorlink =Anton Westermann

| title =Paradoxographoi, scriptores rerum mirabilium graeci

| publisher = Braunschweig

| series =

| volume =

| date =1839

| pages =

| language =English

| url =https://books.google.com/books?id=JHJoAAAAcAAJ

| isbn =

| accessdate=2024-03-28}}

Later scholars have used the existence of this Artemon's work, as well as that of a few others, and some comments by, for example, Plutarch in his Gaius Marius, implying that it would be cliche for him to rehash "overdone" stories of women's accomplishments, that such books were at least somewhat commonplace in ancient Greece.{{cite book

| last =Morton

| first =James

| authorlink =

| editor-first=Kai

| editor-last=Brodersen

| title =Polyaenus: New Studies

| chapter=Polyaenus in Context: The Strategica and Greek Identity in the Second Sophistic Age

| publisher =Verlag Antike

| date =2010

| pages =124

| language =English

| url =https://books.google.com/books?id=enxooaQF3LoC

| isbn = 9783938032398

| accessdate=2024-03-28}}{{cite book

| last =Engels

| first =Johannes

| editor1-first=Daniela

| editor1-last=Dueck

| editor2-first=Hugh

| editor2-last=Lindsay

| editor3-first=Sarah

| editor3-last=Pothecary

| title =Strabo's Cultural Geography: The Making of a Kolossourgia

| chapter=Ἄνδρες ἔνδοξοι, or 'men of high reputation' in Strabo's Geography

| publisher =Cambridge University Press

| date =2005

| pages =129

| language =English

| url =https://books.google.com/books?id=UKpWm2cXNmwC

| isbn = 9781139448437

| accessdate=2024-03-28}}Plutarch, Gaius Marius 243d Other scholars point out that we should not assume that Artemon's and related works uniformly portrayed their subjects in a positive light based on modern assumptions about what these titles would signify, as authors of this period were fascinated by paradoxography, and books praising subjects generally assumed to be not praiseworthy were themselves not uncommon.{{cite book

| last =McInerney

| first =Jeremy

| editor1-first=Ineke

| editor1-last=Sluiter

| editor2-first=Ralph

| editor2-last=Rosen

| title =Andreia: Studies in Manliness and Courage in Classical Antiquity

| chapter=Plutarch's Manly Women

| publisher =Brill Publishers

| date =2003

| pages =326

| language =English