On Famous Women

...the nations he had subdued and restrained by force, this woman dared to take up these massive responsibilities through skill and wit. For, having devised a deception with a certain womanly cunning original: "astu quodam muliebri." In the context of 14th-century literature, "cunning" often referred to a combination of intelligence and strategic deception, which Boccaccio frequently attributes to his female subjects., she first of all deceived the armies regarding the death of her great husband. It was not surprising, as Semiramis bore a very close resemblance to her son in her facial features. Because of this, her cheeks on both sides were not yet different from those of a boy due to her age; her voice was feminine, and in the stature of her body, she—being only slightly larger—differed very little from her offspring.

Aided by these similarities, and lest she be exposed by some slip-up as time went on, she covered her head with a tiara A high, cylindrical headdress or turban, often decorated with jewels, worn by ancient Near Eastern monarchs as a symbol of authority. and concealed her arms and legs with long robes. Furthermore, since such clothing had been unheard of among the Assyrians until then, she ensured that the novelty of the outfit would not provoke suspicion among the local people by decreeing that the entire population should wear the same style of dress.

In this way, now pretending to be the wife of the late king and now the son, a woman feigning to be a boy, she attained royal majesty with wonderful diligence and maintained military discipline. By concealing her true sex, she achieved great things and performed works that would have been outstanding even for the most robust men. And while n...