Her ascension to the throne prompted a revolt in some of the island and coastal cities under her command due to their objection to a female ruler.

[3] Because of Artemisia's grief for her brother-husband, and the extravagant and bizarre forms it took, she became to later ages "a lasting example of chaste widowhood and of the purest and rarest kind of love", in the words of Giovanni Boccaccio.

This view however is challenged by scholars who believe either that the sibling marriages of the Hecatomnids were purely symbolic in nature and that while Ada was attested as his consort, it is not known if she was the mother of Hekatomnos children.

This bronze statue portrays Artemisia in the act of branding the personification of the island of Rhodes, potentially represented by the goddess Rhodos.

Boccaccio completely omits reference to her husband being her brother ("... knowledge of her parents or native country has not reached us ..."), and praised her: "to posterity she is a lasting example of chaste widowhood and of the purest and rarest kind of love".

[16]: 1217 Mulieres quoque hanc gloriam adfectavere, in quibus Artemisia uxor Mausoli adoptata herba, quae antea parthenis vocabatur.

[Women too have been ambitious to gain this distinction, among them Artemisia, the wife of Mausolus, who gave her name to a plant which before was called parthenis.]