Ioannis Boccatii de Certaldo insigne opus De claris mulieribus

She preserved military discipline and, while lying about her sex, accomplished many great deeds worthy of the most robust men. And while sparing no labor, and terrified by no danger, she surpassed the envy of all in unheard-of exploits. She was not afraid, once she had revealed to everyone who she really was, to show that it was not her sex, but her spirit, that was suitable for command. The more this instilled admiration in those who observed her, the more it increased the famous majesty of the woman.

To bring her deeds into the light a little more extensively: having taken up arms with a manly spirit after her ingenious imposture, she not only protected the empire her husband had sought, but also added Ethiopia to it, having challenged and conquered it in fierce war, and from there turned her forces with vehemence against the Indians, to whom no one besides her husband had yet reached. Furthermore, she restored Babylon, the most ancient work of Nembroth Nimrod, which was flourishing in that age in the plains of Sennaar, into a city, and surrounded it with walls made of baked brick, sand, pitch, and bitumen, remarkable for their height, thickness, and extremely long circuit.

And to tell one of her deeds most worthy of memory from the multitude of her actions: it is related with certainty that when she was resting in peace and leisure, combing her hair with her attendants with a certain feminine dexterity and pulling it into braids according to the custom of her country, it happened, while she had not yet finished, that news was brought to her that Babylon had revolted. She took this so badly that, having thrown aside her comb, she rose up in anger, immediately abandoning her feminine office, and seized her arms. Having led out her forces, she besieged the powerful city, and she did not compose what remained of her unkempt hair until she had forced the most powerful city, affected by a long siege, into surrender and recalled it to her dominion with hostile arms. A huge statue cast in bronze and erected in Babylon, showing the woman with her hair loose on one side and braided on the other, long provided testimony of this spirited deed.

She founded many other cities from scratch and performed huge deeds which antiquity has so swallowed that almost nothing remains except what has been said, which pertains to her praise and has reached us. However, all these things, which would be marvelous and laudable in any sturdy man, let alone a woman, she defiled with one obscene womanly vice. For, since she was unhappily consumed by a constant itch of lust, it is believed that she mingled in the bed of many men, and among her adulterers (a thing more beastly than human), her son Ninus is numbered, a youth of most excellent form. He, as if he had changed sex with his mother, wasted away in idle leisure in the chambers, while she sweated in arms against her enemies. Oh, wicked crime (to finish quietly), that amid the anxious cares of the kingdom, amid bloody contests, and (what is like a monster) amid tears and exiles, without any distinction of time, this plague flies out...